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Waterways 





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HISTORIC WATERWAYS 



Historic Waterways 



SIX HUNDRED MILES OF CANOEING 

DOWN THE ROCK, FOX, AND 

WISCONSIN RIVERS 



BY 



REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 

SECRETARY OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN 



Other roads do some violence to Nature, and bring the traveller to stare 
at her ; but the river steals into the scenery it traverses without intrusion, 
silently creating and adorrfing it, and is free to come and go as the 
zephyr. — THOREAU ; A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. 



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^MAR 19IJ88 7 



CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
1888 



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Copyright 
By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

A.D. 1SS8. 



E])i% Hittle Uolume 

IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR 
TO HIS WIFE, 

HIS MESSMATE UPON TWO OF THE THREE VACATION 

VOYAGES HEREIN RECORDED, 

AND HIS FELLOW-VOYAGER DOWN THE RIVER 

OF TIME. 



PREFACE. 



THERE is a generally accepted notion 
that a brief summer vacation, if at all 
obtainable in this busy life of ours, must be 
spent in a flight as far afield as time will allow ; 
that the popular resorts in the mountains, by 
the seaside, or on the margins of the upper 
lakes must be sought for rest and enjoyment ; 
that neighborhood surroundings should, in the 
mad rush for change of air and scene, be left 
behind. The result is that your average va- 
cationist — if I may be allowed to coin a 
needed word — knows less of his own State 
than of any other, and is inattentive to the 
delights of nature which await inspection 
within the limits of his horizon. 

But let him mount his bicycle, his saddle- 
horse, or his family carriage, and start out 
upon a gypsy tour of a week or two along the 
country roads, exploring the hills and plains 
and valleys of — say his congressional dis- 



8 Preface, 

trict ; or, better by far, take his canoe, and 
with his best friend for a messmate explore 
the nearest river from source to mouth, and 
my word for it he will find novelty and fresh 
air enough to satisfy his utmost cravings ; 
and when he comes to return to his counter, 
his desk, or his study, he will be conscious of 
having discovered charms in his own locality 
which he has in vain sought in the accus- 
tomed paths of the tourist. 

This volume is the record of six hundred 
miles of canoeing experiences on historic water- 
ways in Wisconsin and lUinois during the 
summer of 1887. There has been no attempt 
at exaggeration, to color its homely incidents, 
or to picture charms where none exist. It is 
intended to be a simple, truthful narrative of 
what was seen and done upon a series of 
novel outings through the heart of the North- 
west. If it may induce others to undertake 
similar excursions, and thus increase the little 
navy of healthy and self-satisfied canoeists, the 
the object of the publication will have been 
attained. 

I am under obligations to my friend, the 
Hon. Levi Alden, for valuable assistance in 
the revision of proof-sheets. 

R. G. T. 

Madison, Wis., December, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 15 

Table of Distances 26 

CHAPTER. I. 
The Winding Yahara 31 

CHAPTER II. 
Barbed-Wire Fences 48 

CHAPTER III. 
An Illinois Prairie Home 61 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Half-Way House 74 



lo Contents, 

CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

Grand Detour Folks 86 

CHAPTER VT. 
An Ancient Mariner 103 

CHAPTER VII. 
Storm-Bound at Erie 117 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Last Day Out 129 



W^z jFox Eiber (of ffireen Ba2)> 

FIR^T LETTER. 
Smith's Island 143 

SECOND LETTER. 
From Packwaukee to Berlin 160 

THIRD LETTER. 
The Mascoutins I74 

FOURTH LETTER. 
The Land of the Winnebagoes . . . .187 



Contents. 1 1 



FIFTH LETTER. 

PAGE 

Locked Through 205 



SIXTH LETTER. 
The Bay Settlement 218 

CHAPTER L 
Alone in the Wilderness 237 

CHAPTER II. 
The Last of the Sacs 248 

CHAPTER IIL 
A Panoramic View 262 

CHAPTER IV. 
Floating Through Fairyland 275 

CHAPTER V. 
The Discovery of the Mississippi .... 288 

INDEX 295 



INTRODUCTION, 



HISTORIC WATERWAYS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PROVIDED, reader,, you have a goodly 
store of patience, stout muscles, a prac- 
ticed fondness for the oars, a keen love of the 
picturesque and curious in nature, a capacity 
for remaining good-humored under the most 
adverse circumstances, together with a quiet 
love for that sort of gypsy life which we call 
" roughing it," canoeing may be safely recom- 
mended to you as one of the most delightful 
and healthful of outdoor recreations, as well 
as one of the cheapest. 

The canoe need not be of birch-bark or 
canvas, or of the Rob Roy or Racine pattern. 
A plain, substantial, light, open clinker-build 
was what we used, — thirteen feet in extreme 
length, with three-and-a-half feet beam. It 



1 6 Historic Waterways, 

was easily portaged, held two persons com- 
fortably with seventy-five pounds of baggage, 
and drew but five inches, — just enough to let 
us over the average shallows without bump- 
ing. It was serviceable, and stood the rough 
carries and innumerable bangs from sunken 
rocks and snags along its voyage of six hun- 
dred miles, without injury. It could carry a 
large sprit-sail, and, with an attachable keel, 
run close to the wind ; while an awning, de- 
cided luxury on hot days, was readily hoisted 
on a pair of hoops attached to the gunwale on 
either side. But perhaps, where there are no 
portages necessary, an ordinary flat-bottomed 
river punt, built of three boards, would be as 
productive of good results, except as to speed, 
— and what matters speed upon such a tour 
of observation t 

It is not necessary to go to the Maine lakes 
for canoeing purposes ; or to skirt the gloomy 
wastes of Labrador, or descend the angry 
current of a mountain stream. Here, in the 
Mississippi basin, practically boundless oppor- 
tunities present themselves, at our very doors, 
to glide through the heart of a fertile and 
picturesque land, to commune with Nature, 
to drink in her beauties, to view men and 
communities from a novel standpoint, to catch 
pictures of life and manners that will always 



Intro due tio7i. 1 7 

live in one's memory. The traveler by rail 
has brief and imperfect glimpses of the land- 
scape. The canoeist, from his lowly seat 
near the surface of the flood, sees the 
country practically as it was in pioneer days, 
in a state of unalloyed beauty. Each bend in 
the stream brings into view a new vista, and 
thus the bewitching scene changes as in a 
kaleidoscope. The people one meets, the va- 
riety of landscape one encounters, the simple 
adventures of the day, the sensation of being 
an explorer, the fresh air and simple diet, 
combined with that spirit of calm contented- 
ness which overcomes the happy voyager who 
casts loose from care, are the never-failing 
attractions of such a trip. 

To those would-be canoeists who are fond 
of the romantic history of our great West, as 
well as of delightful scenery, the Fox (of 
Green Bay), the Rock, and the Wisconsin, 
each with its sharply distinctive features, 
will be found among the most interesting of 
our neighborhood rivers. And this record of 
recent voyages upon them is, I think, fairly 
representative of what sights and experiences 
await the boatman upon any of the streams 
of similar importance in the vast and well- 
watered region of the upper Mississippi valley. 

Of the three, the Rock river route, through 



1 8 Historic Waterways, 

the great prairies of Illinois, perhaps presents 
the greatest variety of life and scenery. The 
Rock has practically two heads : the smaller, 
in a rustic stream flowing from the north into 
swamp-girted Lake Koshkonong; the larger, 
in the four lakes at Madison, the charming 
capital of Wisconsin, which empty their wat- 
ers into the Avon-like Catfish or Yahara, 
which in turn pours into the Rock a short 
distance below the Koshkonong lake. Our 
course was from Madison almost to the mouth 
of the Rock, near Rock Island, 267 miles of 
paddling, as the river winds. 

The student of history finds the Rock in- 
teresting to him because of its associations 
with the Black Hawk war of 1832. When 
the famous Sac warrior " invaded " Illinois, 
his path of progress was up the south bank 
of that stream. At Prophetstown lived his 
evil genius, the crafty White Cloud, and here 
the Hawk held council with the Pottawat- 
tomies, who, under good Shaubena's influence, 
rejected the war pipe. Dixon is famous as 
the site of the pioneer ferry over the Rock, 
on the line of what was the principal land 
highway between Chicago and southern Wis- 
consin and the Galena mines for a protracted 
period in each year. Here, many a notable 
party of explorers, military officials, miners, 



Introduction. 1 9 

and traders have rendezvoused in the olden 
time. Here was a rallying-point in 1832, as 
well, when Lincoln was a raw-boned militia- 
man in a scouting corps, and Robert Ander- 
son, of Fort Sumter fame, Zachary Taylor, 
and Jefferson Davis were of the regular army 
under bluff old Atkinson. A grove at the 
mouth of Stillman's Creek, a Rock River 
tributary, near Byron, is the scene of the 
actual outbreak of the war. The forest where 
Black Hawk camped with the white-loving 
Pottawattomies is practically unchanged, and 
the open, rolling prairie to the south — on 
which Stillman's horsemen acted at first so 
treacherously, and afterwards as arrant cow- 
ards — is still there, a broad pasture-land 
miles in length, along the river. The contem- 
poraneous descriptions of the " battle " field 
are readily recognizable to-day. Above, as 
far as Lake Koshkonong, the river banks are 
fraught with interest ; for along them the 
soldiery followed up the Sac trail, like blood- 
hounds, and held many an unsatisfactory 
parley with the double-faced Winnebagoes. 

Rock River scenery combines the rustic, 
the romantic, and the picturesque, — prairies, 
meadows, ravines, swamps, mountainous 
bluffs, eroded palisades, wide stretches of 
densely wooded bottoms, heavy upland forests. 



20 Historic Waterways. 

shallows, spits, and rapids. Birds and flowers, 
and uncommon plants and vines, delight the 
naturalist and the botanist. The many thriv- 
ing manufacturing cities, — such as Stough- 
ton, Janesville, Beloit, Rockford, Rockton, 
Dixon, Sterling, and Oregon, — furnish an 
abundance of sight-seeing. The small vil- 
lages — some of them odd, out-of-the-way 
places, of rare types — are worthy of study to 
the curious in economics and human nature. 
The farmers are of many types ; the fisher- 
men one is thrown into daily communion with 
are a class unto themselves ; while millers, 
bridge-tenders, boat-renters, and others whose 
callings are along-shore, present a variety of 
humanity interesting and instructive. The 
twenty-odd mill-dam portages, each having 
difficulties and incidents of its own, are well 
calculated to vary the monotony of the voy- 
age ; there are more or less dangers connected 
with some of the mill-races, while the look- 
out for snags, bowlders and shallows must be 
continuous, sharpening the senses of sight 
and sound ; for a tip-over or the utter demoli- 
tion of the craft may readily follow careless- 
ness in this direction. The islands in the 
Rock are numerous, many of them being 
several miles in length, and nearly all heavily 
wooded. These frequent divisions of the 



Introduction, 2 1 

channel often give rise to much perplexity ; 
for the ordinary summer stage of water is so 
low that a loaded canoe drawing five inches 
of water is liable to be stranded in the chan- 
nel apparently most available. 

The Fox and Wisconsin rivers — the for- 
mer, from Portage to Green Bay, the latter 
from Portage to Prairie du Chien — form a 
water highway that has been in use by white 
men for two and a half centuries. In 1634, 
Jean Nicolet, the first explorer of the North- 
west, passed up the Fox River, to about Berlin, 
and then went southward to visit the Illinois. 
In the month of June, 1673, Joliet and Mar- 
quette made their famous tour over the in- 
terlocked watercourse and discovered the 
Mississippi River. After they had shown the 
way, a tide of travel set in over these twin 
streams, between the Great Lakes and the 
great river, — a motley procession of Jesuit 
missionaries, explorers, traders, trappers, sol- 
diers and pioneers. New England was in 
its infancy when the Fox and Wisconsin be- 
came an established highway for enterprising 
canoeists. 

Since the advent of the railway era this 
historic channel of communication has fallen 
into disuse. The general government has 
spent an immense sum in endeavoring to 



22 Historic Waterways, 

render it navigable for the vessels in vogue 
to-day, but the result, as a whole, is a failure. 
There is no navigation on the Fox worthy of 
mention, above Berlin, and even that below is 
insignificant and intermittent. On the Wis- 
consin there is none at all, except for skiffs 
and an occasional lumber-raft. 

The canoeist of to-day, therefore, will find 
solitude and shallows enough on either river. 
But he can float, if historically inclined, 
through the dusky shadows of the past, for 
every turn of the bank has its story, and there 
is romance enough to stock a volume. 

The upper Fox is rather monotonous. 
The river twists and turns through enormous 
widespreads, grown up with wild rice and 
flecked with water-fowl. These widespreads 
occasionally free themselves of vegetable 
growth and become lakes, like the Buffalo, 
the Puckawa, and the Poygan. There is, 
however, much of interest to the student in 
natural history ; while such towns as Montello, 
Princeton, Berlin, Omro, Winneconne, and 
Oshkosh are worthy of visitation. Lake 
Winnebago is a notable inland sea, and the 
canoeist feels fairly lost, in his little cockle 
shell, bobbing about over its great w^aves. 
The lower Fox runs between high, noble 
banks, and with frequent rapids, past Neenah, 



Introductio7i. 23 

Menasha, Appleton, and other busy manu- 
facturing cities, down to Green Bay, hoary 
with age and classic in her shanty ruins. 

The Wisconsin River is the most pictur- 
esque of the three. Probably the best route is 
from the head of the Dells to the mouth ; but 
the run from Portage to the mouth is the one 
which has the merit of antiquity, and is cer- 
tainly a long enough jaunt to satisfy the average 
tourist. It is a wide, gloomy, mountain-girt 
valley, with great sand-bars and thickly- 
wooded morasses. Settlement is slight. Por- 
tage, Prairie du Sac, Sauk City, and Muscoda 
are the principal towns. The few villages 
are generally from a mile to three miles back, 
at the foot of the bluffs, out of the way of the 
flood, and the river appears to be but little 
used. It is an ideal sketching-ground. The 
canoeist with a camera will find occupation 
enough in taking views of his surroundings ; 
perplexity as to what to choose amid such a 
crowd of charming scenes, will be his only 
difficulty. 

Some suggestions to those who may wish 
to undertake these or similar river trips may 
be advisable. Traveling alone will be found 
too dreary. None but a hermit could enjoy 
those long stretches of waterway, where one 
may float for a day without seeing man or 



24 Historic Waterways, 

animal on the forest-bounded shores, and 
where the oppression of solitude is felt with 
such force that it requires but a slight stretch 
of imagination to carry one's self back in 
thought and feeling to the days when the 
black-robed members of the Company of 
Jesus first penetrated the gloomy wilderness. 
Upon the size of the party should depend the 
character of the preparations. If the plan is 
to spend the nights at farmhouses or village 
taverns, then a party of two will be as large as 
can secure comfortable quarters, — especially 
at a farmhouse, where but one spare bed can 
usually be found, while many are the country 
inns where the accommodations are equally 
limited. If it is intended to tent on the 
banks, then the party should be larger; for 
two persons unused to this experience would 
find it exceedingly lonesome after nightfall, 
when visions of river tramps, dissolute fisher- 
men, and inquisitive hogs and bulls, pass in 
review, and the weakness of the little camp 
against such formidable odds comes to be 
fully recognized. Often, too, the camping- 
places are few and far between, and may in- 
volve a carry of luggage to higher lands 
beyond ; on such occasions, the more assist- 
ance the merrier. But whatever the prep- 
arations for the night and breakfast, the 



Introduction, 25 

mess-box must be relied upon for dinners 
and suppers, for there is no dining-car to be 
taken on along these water highways, and 
eating-stations are unknown. Unless there 
are several towns on the route, of over one 
thousand inhabitants, it would be well to 
carry sufficient provisions of a simple sort 
for the entire trip, for supplies are difficult to 
obtain at small villages, and the quality is 
apt to be poor. Farmhouses can generally 
be depended on for eggs, butter, and milk, — 
nothing more. For drinking-water, obtain- 
able from farm-wells, carry an army canteen, 
if you can get one ; if not, a stone jug will do. 
The river water is useful only for floating the 
canoe, and the offices of the bath. As to per- 
sonal baggage, fly very light, as a draught 
of over six inches would at times work an 
estoppel to your progress on any of the three 
streams mentioned. In shipping your boat 
to any point at which you wish to embark 
upon a river, allow two or three days for 
freight-train delays. 

Be prepared to find canoeing a rough sport. 
There is plenty of hard work about it, a good 
deal of sunburn and blister. You will be 
obliged to wear your old clothes, and may not 
be overpleased to meet critical friends in the 
river towns you visit. But if you have the 



26 Historic Waterways. 

true spirit of the canoeist, you will win for 
your pains an abundance of good air, good 
scenery, wholesome exercise, sound sleep, and 
and something to think about all your life. 



TABLE OF DISTANCES. — TOTAL, 607 MILES. 
THE ROCK RIVER. 

MILES. 

Madison to Stoughton 22 

Stoughton to Janesville 40 

Janesville to Beloit 18 

Beloit to Rockford 40 

Rockford to Byron 18 

Byron to Oregon 15 

Oregon to Dixon 31 

Dixon to Sterling 20 

Sterling to Como 9 

Como to Lyndon 14 

Lyndon to Prophetstovvn 5 

Prophetstown to Erie P^erry 10 

Erie Ferry to Coloma 25 

Coloma to mouth of river 14 

Mouth of river to Rock Island (up Mississippi 

River) 6 

Total 287 

THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY). 

MILES. 

Portage to Packwaukee 25 

Packwaukee to Montello 7 

Montello to Marquette 11 



Introduction, 2 7 



Marquette to Princeton i8 

Princeton to Berlin 20 

Berlin to Omro . 18 

Omro to Oshkosh 22 

Oshkosh to Neenah 20 

Neenah to Appleton 7 

Appleton to Kaukauna 7 

Kaukauna to Green Bay _20 

Total 175 

THE WISCONSIN RIVER. 

MILES. 

Portage to Merrimac 20 

Merrimac to Prairie du Sac 10 

Prairie du Sac to Arena Ferry 15 

Arena Ferry to Helena 8 

Helena to Lone Rock Bridge 14 

Lone Rock Bridge to Muscoda 18 

Muscoda to Port Andrew 9 

Port Andrew to Boscobel 10 

Boscobel to Boydtown 10 

Boydtown to Wauzeka (on Kickapoo) .... 7 

Wauzeka to Wright's Ferry 10 

Wright's Ferry to Bridgeport 4 

Bridgeport to mouth of river 7 

Mouth of river to Prairie du .Chien (up Missis- 
sippi River) 5 

Total 145 



Note. — The above table of distances by water is based 
upon the most reliable local estimates, verified, as far as 
practicable, by official surveys. 



THE ROCK RIVER. 



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THE ROCK RIVER, 



CHAPTER I. 



THE WINDING YAHARA. 



IT was a quarter to twelve, Monday morn- 
ing, the 23d of May, 1887, when we took 
seats in our canoe at our own landing-stage 
on Third Lake, at Madison, spread an awning 
over two hoops, as on a Chinese house-boat, 
pushed off, waved farewell to a little group of 
curious friends, and started on our way to 

explore the Rock River of Illinois. W 

wielded the paddle astern, while I took the 
oars amidships. Despite the one hundred 
pounds of baggage and the warmth emitted 
by the glowing sun, — for the season was un- 
usually advanced, — we made excellent speed, 
as we well had need in order to reach the 
mouth, a distance of two hundred and eighty 



32 Historic Waterways. 

miles as the sinuous river runs, in the seven 
days we had allotted to the task. 

It was a delightful run across the southern 
arm of the lake. There was a light breeze 
aft, which gave a graceful upward curvature 
to our low-set awning. The great elms and 
lindens at charming Lakeside — the home of 
the Wisconsin Chautauqua — droop over the 
bowlder-studded banks, their masses of green- 
ery almost sweeping the water. Down in the 
deep, cool shadows groups of bass and pick- 
erel and perch lazily swish ; swarms of " crazy 
bugs " ceaselessly swirl around and around, 
with no apparent object in life but this 
rhythmic motion, by which they wrinkle the 
mirror-like surface into concentric circles. 
Through occasional openings in the dense 
fringe of pendent boughs, glimpses can be had 
of park-like glades, studded with columnar 
oaks, and stretching upward to hazel-grown 
knolls, which rise in irregular succession 
beyond the bank. From the thickets comes 
the fussy chatter of thrushes and cat-birds, 
calling to their young or gossiping with the 
orioles, the robins, jays, and red-breasted 
grosbeaks, who warble and twitter and scream 
and trill from more lofty heights. 

A quarter of an hour sent us spinning 
across the mouth of Turvill's Bay. At Ott's 



The Winding Yahara, 33 

Farm, just beyond, the bank rises with sheer 
ascent, in layers of crumbly sandstone, a 
dozen feet above the water's level. Close- 
cropped woodlawn pastures gently slope up- 
ward to storm-wracked orchards, and long, 
dark windbreaks of funereal spruce. Flocks 
of sheep, fresh from the shearing, trot along 
the banks, winding in and out between the 
trees, keeping us company on our way, — their 
bleating lambs following at a lope, — now 
and then stopping, in their eager, fearful curi- 
osity, to view our craft, and assuming pic- 
turesque attitudes, worthy subjects for a 
painter's art. 

A long, hard pull through close-grown 
patches of reeds and lily-pads, encumbered 
by thick masses of green scum, brought us to 
the outlet of the lake and the head of that 
section of the Catfish River which is the 
medium through which Third Lake pours 
its overflow into Second. The four lakes of 
Madison are connected by the Catfish, the 
chief Wisconsin tributary of the Rock. Upon 
the map this relationship reminds one of 
beads strung upon a thread. 

As the result of a protracted drought, the 

water in the little stream was low, and great 

clumps of aquatic weeds came very close to 

the surface, threatening, later in the season, 

3 



34 Historic Waterways. 

an alaiost complete stoppage to navigation. 
But the effect of the current was at once per- 
ceptible. It was as if an additional rower had 
been taken on. The river, the open stream of 
which is some three rods wide at this point, 
winds like a serpent between broad marshes, 
which must at no far distant period in the 
past have been wholly submerged, thus pro- 
longing the three upper lakes into a continu- 
ous sheet of water. From a half-mile to a 
mile back, on either side, there are low ridges, 
doubtless the ancient shores of a narrow lake 
that was probably thirty or forty miles in 
length. In high water, even now, the 
marshes are converted into widespreads, 
where the dense tangle of wild rice, reeds, and 
rushes does not wholly prevent canoe naviga- 
tion ; while little mud-bottomed lakes, a quar- 
ter of a mile or so in diameter, are frequently 
met with at all stages. In places, the river, 
during a drought, has a depth of not over 
eighteen inches. In such stretches, the cur- 
rent moves swiftly over hard bottoms strewn 
with gravel and the whitened sepulchres of 
snails and clams. In the widespreads, the 
progress is sluggish, the vegetable growth so 
crowding in upon the stream as to leave but a 
narrow and devious channel, requiring skill to 
pilot through ; for in these labyrinthian turn- 



The Winding Yahara. 35 

ings one is quite liable, if not closely watching 
the lazy flood, to push into some vexatious 
cul-de-sac, many rods in length, and be 
obliged to retrace, with the danger of mistak- 
ing a branch for the main channel. 

In the depths of the tall reeds motherly 
mud-hens are clucking, while their mates 
squat in the open water, in meditative groups, 
rising with a prolonged splash and a whirr as 
the canoe approaches within gunshot. Se- 
cluded among the rushes and cat-tails, nestled 
down in little clumps of stubble, are hundreds 
of the cup-shaped nests of the red-winged 
blackbird, or American starling; the females, 
in modest brown, take a rather pensive view 
of life, administering to the wants of their 
young ; while the bright-hued, talkative males, 
perched on swaying stalks, fairly make the air 
hum with their cheery trills. 

Water-lilies abound everywhere. The blos- 
soms of the yellow variety (nuphar advena) 
are here and there bursting in select groups, 
but as a rule the buds are still below the 
surface. In the mud lakes, the bottom is 
seen through the crystal water to be thickly 
studded with great rosettes, two and three 
feet in diameter, of corrugated ovate leaves, 
of golden russet shade, out of which are shot 
upward brilliant green stalks, some bearing 



36 Historic Waterways, 

arrow-shaped leaves, and others crowned with 
the tight-wrapped buds that will soon open 
upon the water level into saff ron-hued flowers. 
The plate-like leaves of the white variety 
(nymphaea tuberosa) already dot the surface, 
but the buds are not yet visible. Anchored 
by delicate stems to the creeping root-stalks, 
buried in the mud below, the leaves, when 
first emerging, are of a rich golden brown, 
but they are soon frayed by the waves, and 
soiled and eaten by myriads of water-bugs, 
slugs, and spiders, who make their homes 
on these floating islands. Pluck a leaf, 
and the many-legged spiders, the roving buc- 
caneers of these miniature seas, stalk off at 
high speed, while the slugs and leeches, in a 
spirit of stubborn patriotism, prefer meet- 
ing death upon their native heath to politic 
emigration. 

By one o'clock we had reached the railway 
bridge at the head of Second Lake. Upon 
the trestlework were perched three boys and 
a man, fishing. They had that listless air and 
unkempt appearance which are so character- 
istic of the little groups of humanity often to 
be found on a fair day angling from piers, 
bridges, and railway embankments. Men who 
imagine the world is allied against them will 
loll away a dozen hours a day, throughout an 



The Winding Yakara, 37 

entire summer season, sitting on the sun- 
heated girders of an iron bridge ; yet they 
would strike against any system in the work- 
a-day world which compelled them to labor 
more than eight hours for ten hours' pay. 
In going down a long stretch of water high- 
way, one comes to believe that about one- 
quarter of the inhabitants, especially of the 
villages, spend their time chiefly in fishing. 
On a canoe voyage, the bridge fishermen 
and the birds are the classes of animated 
nature most frequently met with, the former 
presenting perhaps the most unique and varied 
specimens. There are fishermen and fisher- 
men. I never could fancy Izaak Walton 
dangling his legs from a railroad bridge, 
soaking a worm at the end of a length of 
store twine, vainly hoping, as the hours went 
listlessly by, that a stray sucker or a diminu- 
tive catfish would pull the bob under and 
score a victory for patience. Now the use of 
a boat lifts this sort of thing to the dignity 
of a sport. 

Second Lake is about three miles long by a 
mile in breadth. The shores are here and 
there marshy ; but as a rule they are of good, 
firm land with occasional rocky bluffs from a 
dozen to twenty feet high, rising sheer from 
a narrow beach of gravel. As we crossed 



38 Historic Waterways, 

over to gain the lower Catfish, a calm pre- 
vailed for the most part, and the awning was 
a decided comfort. Now and then, however, 
a delightful puff came ruffling the water astern, 
swelling our canvas roof and noticeably help- 
ing us along. Light cloudage, blown swiftly 
before upper aerial currents, occasionally 
obscured the sun, — black, gray, and white 
cumuli fantastically shaped and commingled, 
while through jagged and rapidly shifting 
gaps was to be seen with vivid effect, the 
deep blue ether beyond. 

The bluffs and glades are well wooded. 
The former have escarpments of yellow clay 
and grayish sand and gravel ; here and there 
have been landslides, where great trees have 
fallen with the debris and maintain but a 
slender hold amid their new surroundings, 
leaning far out over the water, easy victims for 
the next tornado. One monarch of the woods 
had been thus precipitated into the flood ; on 
one side, its trunk and giant branches were 
water-soaked and slimy, while those above 
were dead and whitened by storm. As we 
approached, scores of turtles, sunning them- 
selves on the unsubmerged portion, suddenly 
ducked their heads and slid off their perches 
amid a general splash, to hidden grottos 
below ; while a solitary king-fisher from his 



The Winding Yahara, 39 

vantage height on an upper bough hurriedly 
rose, and screamed indignance at our rude 
entry upon his preserve. 

A farmer's lad sitting squat upon his 
haunches on the beach, and another, lean- 
ing over a pasture-fence, holding his head 
between his hands, exhibited lamb-like cu- 
riosity at the awning-decked canoe, as it 
glided past their bank. Through openings 
in the forest, we caught glimpses of rolling 
upland pastures, with sod close-cropped and 
smooth as a well-kept lawn ; of gray-blue 
fields, recently seeded; of farmhouses, spa- 
cious barns, tobacco-curing sheds, — for this 
is the heart of the Wisconsin tobacco region, 
— and those inevitable signs of rural pros- 
perity, windmills, spinning around by spurts, 
obedient to the breath of the intermittent 
May-day zephyr ; while little bays opened up, 
on the most distant shore, enchanting vistas 
of blue-misted ridges. 

At last, after a dreamy pull of two miles 
from the lake-head, we rounded a bold head- 
land of some thirty feet in height, and entered 
Catfish Bay. Ice-pushed bowlders strew the 
shore, which is here a gentle meadow slope, 
based by a gravel beach. A herd of cattle are 
contentedly browsing, their movements at- 
tuned to a symphony of cow-bells dangling 



40 Historic Waterways, 

from the necks of the leaders. The scene is 
pre-eminently peaceful. 

The Catfish connecting Second Lake with 
First, has two entrances, a small flat willow 
island dividing them. Through the eastern 
channel, which is the deepest, the current 
goes down with a rush, the obstruction offered 
by numerous bowlders churning it into noisy 
rapids ; but the water tames down within a 
few rods, and the canoe comes gayly gliding 
into the united stream, which now has a 
placid current of two miles per hour, — quite 
fast enough for canoeing purposes. This 
section of the Catfish is much more pictur- 
esque than the preceding ; the shores are 
firmer ; the parallel ridges sometimes closely 
shut it in, and the stream, here four or five 
rods wide, takes upon itself the characteristics 
of the conventional river. The weed and vine 
grown banks are oftentimes twenty feet in 
height, with as sharp an ascent as can be com- 
fortably climbed ; and the swift-rushing water 
is sometimes fringed with sumachs, elders, 
and hazel brush, with here and there willows, 
maples, lindens, and oaks. Occasionally the 
river apparently ends at the base of a steep, 
earthy bluff ; but when that is reached there 
is a sudden swerve to the right or left, with 
another vista of banks, — sometimes wood- 



The Winding Yahara, 41 

grown to the water's edge, again with open- 
ings reveahng purpUsh-brown fields, neatly 
harrowed, stretching up to some command- 
ing, forest-crowned hill-top. The blossoms 
of the wild grape burden the air with sweet 
scent ; on the deep-shaded banks, amid stones 
and cool mosses, the red and yellow colum- 
bine gracefully nods ; the mandrake, with its 
glossy green leaves, grows with tropical luxu- 
riance ; more in the open, appears in great 
profusion, the old maid's nightcap, in purplish 
roseate hue ; the sheep-berry shrub is decked 
in masses of white blossoms ; the hawthorn 
flower is detected by its sickly-sweet scent, 
and here and there are luxuriously-flowered 
locusts, specimens that have escaped from 
cultivation to take up their homes in this bo- 
tanical wilderness. 

There are charming rustic pictures at every 
turn, — sleek herds of cattle, droves of fat 
hogs, flocks of sheep that have but recently 
dofled their winter suits, well-tended fields, 
trim-looking wire fences, neat farm-houses 
where rows of milkpans glisten upon sunny 
drying-benches, farmers and farmers* boys 
riding aristocratic-looking sulky drags and 
cultivators, — everywhere an air of agricultu- 
ral luxuriance, rather emphasized by occa- 
sional log-houses, which repose as honored 



42 Historic Waterways, 

relics by the side of their pretentious succes- 
sors, sharply contrasting the wide differences 
between pioneer life and that of to-day. 

The marshes are few ; and they in this 
dry season are luxuriant with coarse, glossy 
wild grass, — the only hay-crop the far- 
mer will have this year, — and dotted with 
clumps of dead willow-trees, which present 
a ghostly appearance, waving their white, 
scarred limbs in the freshening breeze. The 
most beautiful spot on this section of the 
Catfish is a point some eight miles above 
Stoughton. The verdure-clad banks are high 
and steep. A lanky Norwegian farmer came 
down an angling path with a pail-yoke over his 
shoulders to get washing-water for his " wo- 
man/' and told us that when this country was 
sparsely settled, a third of a century ago, 
there was a mill-dam here. That was the day 
when the possession of water-power meant 
more than it does in this age of steam and 
rapid transit, — the day when every mill-site 
was supposed to be a nucleus around which a 
prosperous village must necessarily grow in 
due time. Nothing now remains as a reUc of 
this particular fond hope but great hollows in 
either bank, where the clay for dam-making 
purposes has been scooped out, and a few 
rotten piles, having a slender hold upon the 



The Winding Yahara. 43 

bottom, against which drift-wood has lodged, 
forming a home for turtles and clumps of semi- 
aquatic grasses. W avers, in a spirit of 

enthusiasm, that the Catfish between Second 
and First Lakes is quite similar in parts to 
the immortal Avon, upon which Shakespeare 
canoed in the long-ago. If she is right, then 
indeed are the charms of Avon worthy the 
praise of the Muses. If the Catfish of to- 
day is ever to go down to posterity on the 
wings of poesy, however, I would wish that it 
might be with the more euphonious title of 
" Yahara," — the original Winnebago name. 
The map-maker who first dropped the liquid 
"Yahara" for the rasping " Catfish" had no 
soul for music. 

Darting under a quaint rustic foot-bridge 
made of rough poles, which on its high trestles 
stalks over a wide expanse of reedy bog like 
a giant " stick-bug," we emerged into First 
Lake. The eastern shore, which we skirted, 
is a wide, sandy beach, backed by meadows. 
The opposite banks, two or three miles away, 
present more picturesque outlines. A stately 
wild swan kept us company for over a mile, 
just out of musket-shot, and finally took ad- 
vantage of a patch of rushes to stop and hide. 
A small sandstone quarry on the southeast 
shore, with a lone worker, attracted our atten- 



44 Historic Waterways. 

tion. There was not a human habitation in 
sight, and it seemed odd to see a solitary man 
engaged in such labor apparently so far re- 
moved from the highways of commerce. 
The quarryman stuck his crowbar in a crack 
horizontally, to serve as a seat, and filled his 
pipe as we approached. We hailed him with 
inquiries, from the stone pier jutting into the 
lake at the foot of the bluff into which he was 
burrowing. He replied from his lofty perch, 
in rich Norsk brogue, that he shipped stone 
by barge to Stoughton, and good-humoredly 
added, as he struck a match and lit his bowl 
of weed, that he thought himself altogether 
too good company to ever get lonesome. We 
left the philosopher to enjoy his pipe in peace, 
and passed on around the headland. 

An iron railway bridge, shut in with high 
sides, and painted a dullish red, spans the 
Lower Catfish at the outlet of First Lake. 
A country boy, with face as dirty as it was 
solemn, stood in artistic rags at the base of 
an arch, fishing with a bit of hop-twine tied 
to the end of a lath ; from a mass of sedge 
just behind him a hoarse cry arose at short 
intervals. 

" Hi, Johnny, what 's that making the 
noise ? " 

" Bird ! " sententiously responded the stoic 



The Wmdmg Yahara, 45 

youth. He looked as though he had been 
bored with a silly question, and kept his eyes 
on his task. 

'' What kind of a bird, Johnny ? " 

** D' no ! " rather raspishly. He evidently 
thought he was being guyed. 

We ran the nose of the canoe into the 
reeds. There was a splash, a wild cry of alarm, 
and up flew a great bittern. Circling about 
until we had passed on, it then drifted down to 
its former location near the uninquiring lad, 
— where doubtless it had a nest of young, 
and had been disturbed in the midst of a lec- 
ture on domestic discipline. 

Wide marshes again appear on either side 
of the stream. There are great and small 
bitterns at every view ; plovers daintily pick- 
ing their way over the open bogs, greedily 
feeding on countless snails ; wild ducks in 
plenty, patiently waiting in the secluded 
bayous for the development of their young ; 
yellow-headed troopials flitting freely about, 
uttering a choking, gulping cry ; while the 
pert little wren, with his smart cock-tail, 
views the varied scene from his perch on a 
lofty rush, jealously keeping watch and ward 
over his ball-like castle, with its secret gate, 
hung among the reeds below. 

But interspersing the marshes there are 



46 Historic Waterways, 

often stretches of firm bank and delightfully 
varied glimpses of hillside and wood. Three 
miles above Stoughton, we stopped for supper 
at the edge of a glade, near a quaint old bridge. 
While seated on the smooth sward, beside 
our little spread, there came a vigorous rust- 
ling among the branches of the trees that 
overhang the country road which winds down 
the opposite slope to the water's edge to take 
advantage of the crossing. A gypsy wagon, 
with a high, rounded, oil-cloth top soon 
emerged from the forest, and was seen to 
have been the cause of the disturbance. 
Halting at one side of the highway, three 
men and a boy jumped out, unhitched the 
horses at the pole and the jockeying stock at 
the tail-board, and led them down to water. 
Two women meanwhile set about getting sup- 
per, and preparations were made for a night 
camp. We confessed to a touch of sympathy 
with our new neighbors on the other shore, 
for we felt as though gypsying ourselves. The 
hoop awning on the canoe certainly had the 
general characteristics of a gypsy-wagon 
top ; we knew not and cared not where night 
might overtake us ; we were dependent on 
the country for our provender; were at the 
mercy of wind, weather, and the peculiarities 
of our chosen highway ; and had deliberately 



The Winding Yahara. 47 

turned our backs on home for a season of un- 
trammeled communion with nature. 

It was during a golden sunset that, push- 
ing on through a great widespread, through 
which the channel doubles and twists like a 
scotched snake, we came in sight of the little 
city of Stoughton. First, the water-works 
tower rises above the mass of trees which 
embower the settlement. Then, on nearer 
approach, through rifts in the woodland we 
catch glimpses of some of the best outlying 
residences, most of them pretty, with well- 
kept grounds. Then come the church-spires, 
the ice-houses, the barge-dock, and with a 
spurt we sweep alongside the foundry of 
Mandt's wagon-works. Depositing our oars, 
paddle, blankets, and supplies in the office, the 
canoe was pulled up on the grass and pad- 
locked to a stake. The street lamps were 
lighting as we registered at the inn. 

Stoughton has about two thousand inhab- 
itants. A walk about town in the evening, 
revealed a number of bright, busy shops, 
chiefly kept by Norwegians, who predominate 
in this region. Nearly every street appears 
to end in one of Mandt's numerous factory 
yards, and the wagon-making magnate seems 
to control pretty much the entire river front 
here. 




3XSr# 



CHAPTER 11. 



BARBED-WIRE FENCES. 



WE were off in the morning, after an 
early breakfast at the Stoughton inn. 
Our host kindly sent down his porter to help 
us over the mill-dam, — our first and easiest 
portage, and one of the few in which we 
received assistance of any kind. Below this, 
as below all of the dams on the river, there 
are broad shallows. The water in the stream, 
being at a low stage, is mainly absorbed in 
the mill-race, and the apron spreads the slight 
overflow evenly over the width of the bed, so 
that there is left a wide expanse of gravel and 
rocks below the chute, which is not covered 
sufficiently deep for navigating even our little 
craft, drawing but five inches when fully 
loaded. We soon grounded on the shallows 
and I was obliged to get out and tow the 
lightened boat to the tail of the race, where 
deeper water was henceforth assured. This 



Barbed' Wire Fences. 49 

experience became quite familiar before the 
end of the trip. I had fortunately brought a 
pair of rubbers in my satchel, and found them 
invaluable as wading-shoes, where the river 
bottom is strewn with sharp gravel and slimy 
round-heads. 

Below Stoughton the river winds along in 
most graceful curves, for the most part be- 
tween banks from six to twenty feet high, 
with occasional pocket-marshes, in which the 
skunk-cabbage luxuriates. The stream is of- 
ten thickly studded with lily-pads, which the 
wind, blowing fresh astern, frequently ruffles 
so as to give the appearance of rapids ahead, 
inducing caution where none is necessary. 
But every half-mile or so there are genuine 
little rapids, some of them requiring care to 
successfully shoot ; in low water the canoe 
goes bumping along over the small moss- 
grown rocks, and now and then plumps sol- 
idly on a big one ; when the stream is turbid, 
— as often happens below a pasture, where 
the cattle stir up the bank mud, — the danger 
of being overturned by scarcely submerged 
bowlders is imminent. 

There are some decidedly romantic spots, 

where little densely-wooded and grape-tangled 

glens run off at right angles, leading up to 

the bases of commanding hillocks, which they 

4 



50 Historic Waterways, 

drain ; or where the noisy little river, five or 
six rods wide, goes swishing around the foot 
of a precipitous, bush-grown bluff. It is no- 
ticeable that in such beauty-spots as these are 
generally to be found poverty-stricken cabins, 
the homes of small fishermen and hunters ; 
while the more generous farm-houses seek the 
fertile but prosaic openings. 

All of a sudden, around a lovely bend, a 
barbed-wire fence of four strands savagely dis- 
puted the passage. A vigorous back-water 
stroke alone saved us from going fiill tilt into 
the bayonets of the enemy. We landed, and 
there was a council of war. As every stream 
in Wisconsin capable of floating a saw-log is 
" navigable " in the eye of the law, it is plain 
that this obstruction is an illegal one. Being 
an illegal fence, it follows that any canoeist is 
entitled to cHp the wires, if he does not care 
to stop and prosecute the fencers for barring 
his way. The object of the structure is to 
prevent cattle from walking around through 
the shallow river into neighboring pastures. 
Along the upper Catfish, where boating is 
more frequently indulged in, farmers ac- 
complish the same object by fencing in a few 
feet of the stream parallel with the shore. 
But below Stoughton, where canoeing is 
seldom practiced, the cattle-owners run their 



Barbed' Wire Fences. 5 1 

fences directly across the river as a measure 
of economy. Taking into consideration the 
fact that the lower Catfish is seldom used as 
a highway, we concluded that we would be 
charitable and leave the fences intact, getting 
under or over them as best we might. I am 
afraid that had we known that twenty-one of 
these formidable barriers were before us, the 
council would not have agreed on so concili- 
atory a campaign. 

Having taken in our awning and disposed 
of our baggage amidships, so that nothing re- 
mained above the gunwale, W , kneeling, 

took the oars astern, while I knelt in the bow 
with the paddle borne like a battering-ram. 
Pushing off into the channel we bore down on 
the centre of the works, which were strong 
and thickly-posted, with wires drawn as tight 
as a drum-string. Catching the lower strand 
midway between two posts, on the blade end 
of the paddle, the speed of the canoe was 
checked. Then, seizing that strand with my 
right hand, so that the thick-strewn barbs 
came between my fingers, I forced it up to 
the second strand, and held the two rigidly 
together, thus making a slight arch. The 
canoe being crowded down into the water by 
sheer exercise of muscle, I crouched low in 
the bow, at the same time forcing the canoe 



52 Historic Waterways, ' 

under and forward through the arch. When 

half-way through, W was able similarly to 

clutch the wires, and perform the same office 
for the stern. This operation, ungraceful but 
effective, was frequently repeated during the 
day. When the current is swift and the wind 
fresh a special exertion is necessary on the 
part of the stern oar to keep the craft at right 
angles with the fence, — the tendency being, 
as soon as the bow is snubbed, to drift along- 
side and become entangled in the wires, with 
the danger of being either badly scratched or 
upset. It is with a feeUng of no slight relief 
that a canoeist emerges from a tussle with a 
barbed-wire fence ; and if hands, clothing, 
and boat have escaped without a scratch, he 
may consider himself fortunate, indeed. Be- 
fore the day was through, when our twenty- 
one fences had been conquered without any 
serious accident, it was unanimously voted 
that the exercise was not to be recommended 
to those weak in muscle or patience. 

Eight miles below Stoughton is Dunkirk. 
There is a neat frame grist-mill there ; and 
up a gentle slope to the right are four or five 
weather-beaten farm-houses, in the corners of 
the cross-roads. It was an easy portage at 
the dam. After pushing through the shallows 
below with some difficulty, we ran in under 



Barbed- Wire Fences., 5 3 

the shadow of a substantial wagon-bridge, and 
beached. Going up to the corners, we filled 
the canteen with ice-cold water from a moss- 
grown well, and interviewed the patriarchal 
miller, who assured us that "nigh onter a 
dozen year ago, Dunkirk had a bigger show 
for growin' than Stoughton, but the railroad 
went 'round us." 

A few miles down stream and we come to 
Stebbinsville. The water is backset by a 
mill-dam for two miles, forming a small lake. 
The course now changing, the wind came 
dead ahead, and we rowed down to the dam in 
a rolling sea, with much exertion. The river 
is six rods wide here, flowing between smooth, 
well-rounded, grass-grown banks, from fifteen 
to thirty feet in height, the fields on either side 
sloping up to wood-crowned ridges. There 
are a mill and two houses at Stebbinsville, 
and the country round about has a prosperous 
appearance. A tall, pleasant-spoken young 
miller came across the road-bridge and talked 
to us about the crops and the river, while we 
made a comfortable portage of five rods, up 
the grassy bank and through a close-cropped 
pasture, down to a sequestered little bay at 
the tail of an abandoned race, where the spray 
of the falls spattered us as we reloaded. We 
pushed off, with the joint opinion that Steb- 



54 Historic Waterways, 

binsville was a charming little place, with ideal 
riverside homes, that would be utterly spoiled 
by building the city on its site which the 
young man said his father had always hoped 
would be established there. A quarter of a 
mile below, around the bend, is a disused 
mill, thirty feet up, on the right bank. There 
is a suspended platform over a ravine, to one 
side of the building, and upon its handrail 
leaned two dusty millers, who had doubtless 
hastened across from the upper mill, to watch 
the progress down the little rapids here of 
what was indeed a novel craft to these waters. 
They waved their caps and gave us a cheery 
shout as we quickly disappeared around 
another curve ; but while it still rung in our 
ears we were suddenly confronted by one of 
the 'tightest fences on the course, and had 
neither time nor disposition to return the 
salute. 

And so we slid along, down rapids, through 
long stretches of quiet water and scraping 
over shallows, plying both oars and paddle, 
while now and then "making" a fence and 
comparing its savagery with that of the pre- 
ceding one. Here and there the high vine-clad 
banks, from overshadowing us would irregu- 
larly recede, leaving little meadows, full of 
painted-cups, the wild rose-colored phlox and 



Barbed- Wire Fences. 



55 



saxifrage ; or bits of woodland in the dryer 
bottoms, radiant, amid the underbrush, with 
the daisy, cinque-foil, and puccoon. King- 
fishers and blue herons abound. Great turtles, 
disturbed by the unwonted splash of oars, 
slide down high, sunny banks of sand, where 
they have been to lay their eggs, and amid a 
cloud of dust shuffle off into the water, their 
castle of safety. These eggs, so trustfully left 
to be hatched by the warmth of the sun, form 
toothsome food for coons and skunks, which 
in turn fall victims to farmers' lads, — as wit- 
ness the rows of peltries stretched inside 
out on shingles, and tacked up on the sunny 
sides of the barns and woodsheds along the 
river highway. 

As we begin to approach the valley of the 
Rock, the hills grow higher, groups of red 
cedar appear, the banks of red clay often at- 
tain the height of fifty or sixty feet, broken 
by deep, staring gullies and wooded ravines, 
through which little brooklets run, the output 
of back-country springs ; while the pocket- 
meadows are less frequent, although more 
charmingly diversified as to color and back- 
ground. 

We had our mid-day lunch on a pleasant 
bank, that had been covered earlier in the 
season with hepatica, blood-root, and dicentra, 



56 Historic Waterways, 

and was now resplendent with Solomon's seal, 
the dark-purple water-leaf, and graceful maiden- 
hair ferns, with here and there a dogwood in 
full bloom. Behind us were thick woods and 
an overlooking ridge; opposite, a meadow- 
glade on which herds of cattle and black hogs 
grazed. A bell cow waded into the water, 
followed by several other members of the 
herd, and the train pensively proceeded in 
single file diagonally across the shallow stream 
to another feeding-ground below. The leader's 
bell had a peculiarly mournful note, and the 
scene strongly reminded one of an ecclesias- 
tical procession. 

In the middle of the afternoon the little 
village of Fulton was reached. It is a dead- 
alive, moss-grown settlement, situated on a 
prairie, through which the river has cut a 
deep channel. There are a cheese-factory, 
a grist-mill, a church, a school-house, three or 
four stores, and some twenty-five houses, with 
but a solitary boat in sight, and that of the 
punt variety. It was recess at the school as 
we rowed past, and boys and girls were chiefly 
engaged in climbing the trees which cluster 
in the little schoolhouse yard. A chorus of 
shouts and whistles greeted us from the leafy 
perches, in which we could distinguish " Shoot 
the roof!" — an exclamation called forth by 



:Ba7^ded' Wire Fences. 5 7 

the awning, which doubtless seemed the chief 
feature of our outfit, viewed from the top of 
the bank. 

At the mill-dam, a dozen lazy, shiftless 
fellows were fishing at the foot of the chute, 
and stared at our movements with expression- 
less eyes. The portage was somewhat diffi- 
cult, being over a high bank, across a rocky 
road, and down through a stretch of bog. 

When we had completed the carry, W 

waited in the canoe while I went up to the 
fishermen for information as to the lay of the 
country. 

*'How far is it to the mouth of the Catfish, 
my friend ? " I asked the most intelligent 
member of the party. 

"D'no! Never was thar." He jerked in 
his bait, to pull off a weed that had become 
entangled in it, and from the leer he gave his 
comrades it was plain that I had struck the 
would-be wag of the village. 

" How far do you think it is 1 " I insisted, 
curious to see how far he would carry his 
obstinacy. 

" Don' think nuthin' 'bout 't ; don' care t' 
know." 

" Did n't you ever hear any one say how 
far it is t " and I sat beside him on the stone 
pier, as if I had come to stay. 



58 Historic Waterways. 

"Nab!" 

" Suppose you were placed in a boat here 
and bad to float down to tbe Rock, bow long 
do you imagine you 'd be ? " 

"Aint no man goin' t' place me in no boat ! 
No siree ! " pugnaciously. 

" Don't you ever row ? " 

" Nab ! " contemptuously ; *' wbat I want of 
a boat ? Bridge 's good 'nougb fer us fellers, 
a-fisbin." 

" VVbose boat is tbat, over tbere, on tbe 
sbore ? " 

" Scboolmaster's. He 's a dood, be is. 
Bridge is n't ricb 'nougb fer his blood. Boats 
is fer doods." And with this withering re- 
mark be relapsed into so intent an observation 
of his line that I thought it best to disturb 
him no longer. 

Below Fulton, the stream is quite swift and 
the scenery more rugged, tbe evidences of 
disastrous spring overflows and back-water 
from tbe Rock being visible on every hand. 
At five o'clock, we came to a point where tbe 
river divides into three channels, there being 
a clump of four small islands. A barbed-wire 
fence, the last we were fated to rneet, was 
stretched across each channel. Selecting tbe 
central mouth, — for this is the delta of tbe 
Catfish, — we shot down with a rush, but were 



Barbed- Wire Fences, 5 9 

soon lodged on a sandbank. It required 
wading and much pushing and twisting and 
towing before we were again off, but in the 
length of a few rods more we swung free 
into the Rock, which was to be our high- 
way for over two hundred miles more of 
canoe travel. 

The Rock River is nearly a quarter of a 
mile wide at this point, and comes down with 
a majestic sweep from the north, having its 
chief source in the gloomily picturesque Lake 
Koshkonong. The banks of the river at and 
below the mouth of the Catfish, are quite impos- 
ing, rising into a succession of graceful, round- 
topped mounds, from fifty to one hundred feet 
high, and finely wooded except where cleared 
for pasture or as the site of farm-buildings. 
While the immediate edges of the stream are 
generally firm and grass-grown, with occa- 
sional gravelly beaches, there are frequent 
narrow strips of marsh at the bases of the 
mounds, especially on the left bank where 
innumerable springs send forth trickling rills 
to feed the river. A stiff wind up-stream 
had broken the surface into white caps, and 
more than counteracted the force of the lazy 
current, so that progress now depended upon 
vigorous exercise at the oars and paddle. 

Three miles above Janesville is Pope's 



6o Histoi'ic Waterways, 

Springs, a pleasant summer resort, with white 
tents and gayly painted cottages commingled. 
It is situated in a park-like wood, on the right 
bank, while directly opposite are some bold, 
rocky cliffs, or palisades, their feet laved in 
the stream. We spread our supper cloth on 
the edge of a wheat-field, in view of the pretty 
scene. The sun was setting behind a bank 
of roseate clouds, and shooting up broad, 
sharply defined bands of radiance nearly to 
the zenith. The wind was blowing cold, 
wraps were essential, and we were glad to be 
on our way once more, paddling along in the 
dying light, past palisades and fields and 
meadows, reaching prosperous Janesville, on 
her rolling prairie, just as dusk was thickening 
into dark. 




CHAPTER III. 



AN ILLINOIS PRAIRIE HOME. 



WE had an early start from the hotel 
next morning. A prospect of the 
situation at the upper Janesville dam, from a 
neighboring bridge, revealed the fact that 
the mill-race along the left bank afforded the 
easiest portage. Reloading our craft at the 
boat-renter's staging where it had passed 
the night, we darted across the river, under 
two low-hung bridges, keeping well out of 
the overflow current and entered the race, 
making our carry over a steep and rocky 
embankment. 

Below, after passing through the centre of 
the city, the river widens considerably, as it 
cuts a deep channel through the fertile prairie, 
and taking a sudden bend to the southwest, 
becomes a lake, formed by back-water from 
the lower dam. The wind was now dead 
ahead again, and fierce. White caps came 



62 Historic Waterways. 

savagely roHing up stream. The pull down 
brought out the rowing muscles to their full- 
est tension. The canoe at times would ap- 
pear to scarcely creep along, although oars 
and paddle would bend to their work. 

The race of the carding-mill, which we 
were now approaching, is by the left bank, 
the rest of the broad river — fully a third of 
a mile wide here — being stemmed by a pon- 
derous, angling dam, the shorter leg of which 
comes dangerously close to the entrance of 
the race, which it nearly parallels. Over- 
head, fifty feet skyward, a great railway bridge 
spans the chasm. The disposition of its 
piers leaves a rowing channel but two rods 
wide, next the shore. Through this a deep, 
swift current flows, impelling itself for the 
most part over the short leg of the chute, with 
a deafening roar. Its backset, however, is 
caught in the yawning mouth of the race. It 
so happens then that from either side of an 
ugly whirling strip of doubting water, parallel 
with the shorter chute, the flood bursts forth, 
— to the left plunging impetuously over the 
apron to be dashed to vapor at its foot ; to 
the right madly rushing into the narrow race, 
to turn the wheels of the carding-mill half a 
mile below. This narrow channel, under the 
bridge and next the shore, of which I have 



An Illinois Prairie Home. 63 

spoken, is the only practicable entrance to 
the race. 

We had -landed above and taken a pano- 
ramic view of the situation from the deck of 
the bridge ; afterward had descended to the 
flood-gates at the entrance of the race, for 
detailed inspection and measurements. One 
of the set of three gates was partly raised, the 
bottom being but three feet above the boiling 
surface, while the great vertical iron beams 
along which the cog-wheels work were not 
over four feet apart. It would require steady 
hands to guide the canoe to the right of the 
whirl, where the flood hesitated between two 
destinations, and finally to shoot under the 
uplifted gate, which barely gave room in either 
height or breadth for the passage of the boat. 
But we arrived at the conclusion that the 
shoot was far more dangerous in appearance 
than in reality, and that it was preferable to a 
long and exceedingly irksome portage. 

So we determined to make the attempt, and 
walked back to the canoe. Disposing our 
baggage in the centre, as in the barbed-wire 

experience of the day before, W again took 

the oars astern and I the paddle at the bow. 
A knot of men on the bridge had been watch- 
ing our movements with interest, and waved 
their hats at us as we came cautiously creeping 



64 Historic Waterways. 

along the shore. We went under the bridge 
with a swoop, waited till we were within three 
rods of the brink of the thundering fall, and 
then strained every muscle in sending the canoe 
shooting off at an angle into the waters bound 
for the race. We went down to the gate as 
if shot out of a cannon, but the little craft was 
easily controlled, quickly obeying every stroke 
of the paddle. Catching a projecting timber, 
it was easy to guide ourselves to the opening. 
We lay down in the bottom of the boat and 
with uplifted hands clutched the slimy gate ; 
slowly, hand over hand, we passed through 
under the many internal beams and rods of 
the structure, with the boiling flood under us, 
making an echoing roar, amid which we were 
obliged to fairly shout our directions to each 
other. In the last section the release was 
given ; we were fairly hurled into daylight on 
the surface of the mad torrent, and were many 
a rod down the race before we could recover 
our seats. The men on the bridge, joined by 
others, now fairly yelled themselves hoarse over 
the successful close of what was apparently 
a hazardous venture, and we waved acknowl- 
edgments with the paddle, as we glided away 
under the willows which overhang the long 
and narrow canal. At the isolated mill, 
where there is one of the easiest portages on 



An Illi7iois Prairie Home. 65 

the route, the hands came flocking by dozens 
to the windows to see the craft which had 
invaded their quiet domain. 

The country toward Beloit becomes more 
hilly, especially upon the left bank, along 
which runs the Chicago and Northwestern 
railway, all the way down from Janesville. 
At the Beloit paper-mill, which was reached 
at three o'clock in the afternoon, it was found 
that owing to the low stage of water one end 
of the apron projected above the flood. With 
some difliculty as to walking on the slimy 
incline, we portaged over the face of the dam 
and went down stream through the heart of 
the pretty little college town, getting more 
or less picturesque back-door views of the 
domestic life of the community. 

Beloit being on the State line, we had now 
entered Illinois. For several miles the river 
is placid and shallow, with but a feeble current. 
Islands begin to appear, dividing the channel 
and somewhat perplexing canoeists, it being 
often quite diflicult to decide which route is 
the best ; as a rule, one is apt to wish 
that he had taken some other than the one 
selected. 

The dam at Rockton was reached in a two 
hours' pull. It was being repaired, stone for 
the purpose being quarried on a neighboring 
5 



66 Historic Waterways. 

bank and transported to the scene of action 
on a flat-boat. We had been told that we 
could save several miles by going down the 
race, which cuts the base of a long detour. 
But the boss of the dam-menders assured us 
that the race was not safe, and that we would 
" get in a trap " if we attempted it. Deeming 
discretion the better part of valor, with much 
difficulty we lifted the canoe over the high, 
jagged, stone embankment and through a bit 
of tangled swamp to the right, and took the 
longest way around. It was four or five miles 
by the bend to the village of Rockton, whose 
spires we could see at the dam, rising above 
a belt of intervening trees. It being our first 
detour of note, we were somewhat discouraged 
at having had so long a pull for so short a 
vantage ; but we became well used to such 
experiences long before our journey was 
over. It was not altogether consoling to be 
informed at Rockton — which is a smart little 
manufacturing town of a thousand souls — 
that the race was perfectly practicable for 
canoes, and the tail portage easy. 

Beaching near the base of a fine wagon- 
bridge which here spans the Rock, we went 
up to a cluster of small houses on the bank 
opposite the town, to have some tea steeped, 
our prepared stock being by this time ex- 



An Illinois Prairie Home, 67 

hausted. The people were all employed in 
the paper-mills in the village, but one good 
woman chanced to be at home for the after- 
noon, and cheerfully responded to our request 
for service. A young, neat, and buxom little 
woman she was, though rather sad-eyed and 
evidently overworked in the family struggle 
for existence. She assured us that she now- 
adays never went upon the water in an open 
boat, for she had " three times been near 
drowndid " in her life, which she thought was 
" warnin' enough for one body." Inquiry de- 
veloped that her first " warnin' " consisted of 
having been, when she was " a gal down in 
Kansis," taken for a row in a leaky boat ; 
the water came in half-way up to the thwarts, 
and would have eventually swamped the craft 
and drowned its occupants, in perhaps half 
an hour's time, if her companion had not 
luckily bethought himself to run in to shore 
and land. Another time, she and her hus- 
band were out rowing, when a stern-wheel 
river steamer came along, and the swell in 
her wake washed the row-boat atop of a log 
raft, and " she stuck there, ma'am, would ye 
believe, and we 'd 'a' drowndid sure, with a 
storm a-comin' up, had n't my brother-in-law, 
that was then a-courtin* of sister Jane, come 
off in a dug-out and took us in." Her last 



68 Historic Waterways. 

and most harrowing experience was in a boat 
on the RepubUcan River in Kansas. She and 
another woman were out when a storm came 
up, and white-capped waves tossed the Httle 
craft about at will ; but fortunately the blow 
subsided, and the women regained pluck 
enough to take the oars and row home again. 
The eyes of the paper-maker's wife were suf- 
fused with tears, as, seated in her rocking- 
chair by the kitchen stove and giving the tea- 
pot an occasional shake, doubtless to hasten 
the brew, she related these thrilling tales of 
adventure by flood, and called us to witness 
that thrice had Providence directly interposed 
in her behalf. We were obliged to acknowl- 
edge ourselves much impressed with the 
gravity of the dangers she had so success- 
fully passed through. Her sympathy with 
the perils which we were braving, in what 
she was pleased to call our singular journey, 
was so great that the good woman declined 
to accept pay for having steeped our tea in a 
most excellent manner, and bade us an affect- 
ing God-speed. 

We had our supper, graced with the hot 
tea, on a pretty sward at the river end of the 
quiet lane just around the corner ; while a 
dozen little children in pinafores and short 
clothes, perched on a neighboring fence, 



An Illinois Prairie Home, 69 

watched and discussed us as eagerly as 
though we were a circus caravan halting by 
the wayside for refreshment. The paper- 
maker's wife also came out, just as we were 
packing up for the start, and inspected the 
canoe in some detail. Her judgment was 
that in her giddiest days as an oarswoman, 
she would certainly never have dared to set 
foot in such a shell. She watched us off, just 
as the sun was disappearing, and the last 
Rockton object we saw was our tender- 
hearted friend standing on the beach at the 
end of her lane, both hands shading her eyes, 
as she watched us fade away in the gloam- 
ing. I have no doubt she has long ago given 
us up for lost, for her last words were, " I 've 
heerd 'em tell it was a riskier river than any 
in Kansis, 'tween here an* Missip' ; tek care 
ye don't git drowndid ! " 

In the soft evening shadows it was cool 
enough for heavy wraps. In fact, for the 

greater part of the day W had worn a 

light shoulder cape. We had a beautiful 
sunset, back of a group of densely timbered 
islands. We would have been sorely tempted 
to camp out on one of these, but the night 
was setting in too cold for sleeping in the 
open air, and we had no tent with us. 

The twilight was nearly spent, and the 



70 Historic Waterways. 

banks and now frequent islands were so 
heavily wooded that on the river it was rap- 
idly becoming too dark to navigate among 

the shallows and devious channels. W 

volunteered to get out and look for a farm- 
house, for none could be seen from our hollow 
way. So she landed and got up into some 
prairie wheatfields back away from the bank. 
After a half-mile's walk parallel with the river 
she sighted a prosperous-looking establish- 
ment, with a smart windmill, large barns, and 
a thrifty orchard, silhouetted against the fast- 
fading sunset sky. The signal was given, 
and the prow of the canoe was soon resting 
on a steep, gravely beach at the mouth of a 
ravine. Armed with the paddle, for a pos- 
sible encounter with dogs, we went up through 
the orchard and a timothy-field sopping with 
dew, scaled the barnyard fence, passed a big 
black dog that growled savagely, but was by 
good chance chained to an old mowing-ma- 
chine, walked up to the kitchen door and 
boldly knocked. 

No answer. The stars were coming out, 
the shadows darkening, night was fairly upon 
us, and shelter must be had, if we were ob- 
liged to sleep in the barn. The dog reared 
on his hind legs, and fairly howled with rage. 
A row of well-polished milk-cans on a bench 



An Illinois Prairie Home. 7 1 

by the windmill well, and the general air of 
thrifty neatness impelled us to persevere. An 
old German, with kindly face and bushy white 
hair, finally came, cautiously peering out be- 
neath a candle which he held above his head. 
English he had none, and our German was 
too fresh from the books to be reliable in 
conversation. However, we mustered a few 
stereotyped phrases from the " familiar con- 
versations " in the back of the grammar, 
which served to make the old man smile, and 
disappearing toward the cattle-sheds he soon 
returned with his daughter and son-in-law, a 
cheerful young couple who spoke good Eng- 
lish, and assured us of welcome and a bed. 
They had been out milking by lantern-light 
when interrupted, and soon rejoined us with 
brimming pails. 

It did not take long to feel quite at home 
with these simple, good-hearted folk. They 
had but recently purchased the farm and were 
strangers in the community. The old man 
lived with his other children at Freeport, and 
was there only upon a visit. The young peo- 
ple, natives of Illinois, were lately married, 
their wedding-trip having been made to this 
house, where they had at once settled down 
to a thrifty career, surrounded with quite 
enough comforts for all reasonable demands. 



72 Historic Waterways. 

and a few simple luxuries. W declared 

the kitchen to be a model of neatness and 
convenience ; and the sitting-room, where we 
passed the evening with our modest enter- 
tainers, — who appeared quite well posted on 
current news of general importance, — showed 
evidences of being in daily use. They were 
devout Catholics, and I was pleased to find 
the patriarch drifting down the river of time 
with a heartfelt appreciation of the benefits 
of democracy, fully cognizant of what Ameri- 
can institutions had done for him and his. 
Immigrating in the noon-tide of life and set- 
tling in a German neighborhood, he had found 
no need and had no inclination to learn our 
language. But he had prospered from the 
start, had secured for his children a good 
education at the common schools, had imbued 
them with the spirit of patriotism, had seen 
them marry happily and with a bright future, 
and at night he never retired without utter- 
ing a bedside prayer of gratitude that God 
had turned his footsteps to blessed America. 
As the old man told me his tale, with his 
daughter's hands resting lovingly in his while 
she served as our interpreter, and contrasted 
the hard lot of a German peasant with the in- 
dependence of thought and speech and action 
vouchsafed the German-American farmer, who 



An Illinois Prairie Home, 73 

can win competence in a state of freedom, 
I felt a thrill of patriotism that would have 
been the making of a Fourth-of-July orator. 
I wished that thousands such as he originally 
was, still dragging out an existence in the 
fatherland, could have listened to my aged 
friend and followed in his footsteps. 




CHAPTER IV. 



THE HALF-WAY HOUSE. 



THE spin down to Roscoe next morning 
was delightful in every respect. The 
air was just sharp enough for vigorous exer- 
cise. These were the pleasantest hours we 
had yet spent. The blisters that had troubled 
us for the first three days were hardening into 
callosities, and arm and back muscles, which 
at first were sore from the unusually heavy 
strain upon them, at last were strengthened 
to their work. Thereafter we felt no physi- 
cal inconvenience from our self-imposed task. 
At night, after a pull of eleven or twelve 
hours, relieved only by the time spent in 
lunching, in which we hourly alternated at 
the oars and paddle, slumber came as a most 
welcome visitation, while the morning ever 
found us as fresh as at the start. Let those 
afflicted with insomnia try this sort of life. 
My word for it, they will not be troubled 



The Half -Way House, 75 

so long as the canoeing continues. Every 
muscle of the body moves responsive to each 
pull of the oars or sweep of the paddle ; while 
the mental faculties are kept continually on 
the alert, watching for shallows, snags, and 
rapids, in which operation a few days' experi- 
ence will render one quite expert, though 
none the less cautious. 

As we get farther down into the Illinois 
country, the herds of live-stock increase in 
size and number. Cattle may be seen by 
hundreds at one view, dotted all over the 
neighboring hills and meadows, or dreamily 
standing in the cooling stream at sultry noon- 
day. Sheep, in immense flocks, bleat in deaf- 
ening unison, the ewes and their young being 
particularly demonstrative at our appearance, 
and sometimes excitedly following us along 
the banks. Droves of black hogs and shoats 
are ploughing the sward in their search for 
sweet roots, or lying half-buried in the wet 
sand. Horses, in familiar groups, quickly 
lift their heads in startled wonder as the cano- 
pied canoe glides silently by, — then suddenly 
wheel, kick up their heels, sound a snort of 
alarm, and dash off at a thundering gallop, 
clods of turf filling the air behind them. 
There are charming groves and parks and 
treeless downs, and the river cuts through the 



76 Historic Waterways, • 

alluvial soil to a depth of eight and ten feet, 
throwing up broad beaches on either side. 

At RosGoe, three or four miles below our 
morning's starting-point, there is a collection 
of three or four neat farm-houses, each with 
its spinning windmill. 

Latham Station, nine miles below Rockton, 
was reached at ten o'clock. The post-office is 
called Owen. There is a smart little depot on 
the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway 
line, two general stores, and a half-dozen cot- 
tages, with a substantial-looking creamery, 
where we obtained buttermilk drawn fresh 
from one of the mammoth churns. The con- 
cern manufactures from three hundred to nine 
hundred pounds per day, according to the 
season, shipping chiefly to New York city. 
Leaning over the hand-rail which fences off 
the "making" room, and gossiping with the 
young man in charge, I conjured up visions 
of the days when, as a boy on the farm, I used 
to spend many weary, almost tearful hours, 
pounding an old crock churn, in which the 
butter would always act like a balky horse 
and refuse to "come" until after a long series 
of experimental coaxing. Nowadays, rustic 
youths luxuriously ride behind the plough, the 
harrow, the cultivator, the horse-rake, the hay- 
loader, and the self-binding harvester, while 



'The Half -Way House > 



11 



the butter-making is farmed out to a factory 
where the thing is done by steam. The 
farmer's boy of the future will live in a world 
darkened only by the frown of the district 
schoolmaster and the intermittent round of 
stable chores. 

At Latham Station we encountered the 
first ferry-boat on our trip, — a flat-bottomed 
scow with side-rails, attached by ropes and 



FARE. 




Foot Passengere . , 


10 cts. 


Man & Horse . . . 


15 ct. 


single Carriage . . . 


10 c. 


double " ... 


150 


each Passinger . . . 


.5c 


Night Raites . . Double Fare. 


All persons 




Are cautioned 




Againts useing 




this Boat with Out | 


Permistion from 




the Owners 





pulleys to a suspended wire cable, and work- 
ing diagonally, with the force of the current. 
A sign conspicuously displayed on the craft 



bore the above legend. 



78 Historic Waterways. 

From the time we had entered Ilhnois, 
the large, graceful, white blossoms of the 
Pennsylvanian anemone and the pink and 
white fringe of the erigeron Canadense had 
appeared in great abundance upon the river 
banks, while the wild prairie rose lent a deli- 
cate beauty and fragrance to the scene. On 
sandy knolls, where in early spring the anem- 
one patens and crowfoot violets had thrived 
in profusion, were now to be seen the geum 
triflorum and the showy yellow puccoon ; the 
long-flowered puccoon, with its delicate pale 
3^ellow, crape-like blossom, was just putting in 
an appearance ; and little white, star-shaped 
flowers, which were strangers to us of Wis- 
consin, fairly dotted the green hillsides, min- 
gled in striking contrast with dwarf blue mint. 
Bevies of great black crows, sitting in the tops 
of dead willow-trees or circling around them, 
rent the air with sepulchral squawks. Men 
and boys were cultivating in the cornfields, 
the prevalent drought painfully evidenced by 
the clouds of gray dust which enveloped them 
and their teams as they stirred up the brittle 
earth. 

There was now a fine breeze astern, and 
the awning, abandoned during the head winds 
of the day before, was again welcomed as the 
sun mounted to the zenith. At 2.30 p. m., 



The Half- Way House. 79 

we were in busy Rockford, where the banks 
are twenty or twenty-five feet high, with roll- 
ing prairies stretching backward to the hori- 
zon, except where here and there a wooded 
ridge intervenes. Rockford is the metropolis 
of the valley of the Rock. It has twenty- two 
thousand inhabitants, with many elegant man- 
sions visible from the river, and evidences 
upon every hand of that prosperity which 
usually follows in the train of varied manufac- 
turing enterprises. 

There are numerous mills and factories along 
both sides of the river, and a protracted in- 
spection of the portage facilities was neces- 
sary before we could decide on which bank 
to make our carry. The right was chosen. 
The portage was somewhat over two ordinary 
city blocks in length, up a steep incline and 
through a road-way tunnel under a great flour- 
ing mill. We had made nearly half the dis- 
tance, and were resting for a moment, when 
a mill-driver kindly offered the use of his 
wagon, which was gratefully accepted. We 
were soon spinning down the tail of the race, 
a half-dozen millers waving a " Chautauqua 
salute" with as many dusty flour-bags, and in 
ten minutes more had left Rockford out of 
sight. 

Several miles below, there are a half-dozen 



8o Historic Waterways. 

forested islands in a bunch, some of them four 
or five acres in extent, and we puzzled over 
vi^hich channel to take, — the best of them 
abounding in shallows. The one down which 
the current seemed to set the strongest was 
selected, but we had not proceeded over half 
a mile before the trees on the banks began to 
meet in arches overhead, and it was evident 
that we were ascending a tributary. It proved 
to be the Cherry River, emptying into the 
main stream from the east. The wind, now 
almost due-west, had driven the waves into 
the mouth of the Cherry, so that we mistook 
this surface movement for the current. Com- 
ing to a railway bridge, which we knew from 
our map did not cross the Rock, our course 
was retraced, and after some difficulty with 
snags and gravel-spits, we were once more 
upon our proper highway, trending to the 
southwest. 

Supper was eaten upon the edge of a large 
island, several miles farther down stream, 
in the shade of two wide-spreading locusts. 
Opposite are some fine, eroded sandstone pali- 
sades, which formation had been frequently 
met with during the day, — sometimes on 
both sides of the river, but generally on the 
left bank, which is, as a rule, the most pic- 
turesque along the entire course. 



The Half' Way House. 8 1 

It was still so cold when evening shadows 
thickened that camping out, with our meagre 
preparations for it, seemed impracticable ; so 
we pushed on and kept a sharp lookout for 
some friendly farm-house at which to quarter 
for the night. The houses in the thickly- 
wooded bottoms, however, were generally 
quite forbidding in appearance, and the sun 
had gone down before we sighted a well-built 
stone dwelling amid a clump of graceful ever- 
greens. It seemed, from the river, to be the 
very embodiment of comfortable neatness ; but 
upon ascending the gentle slope and fighting 
off two or three mangy curs which came 
snarling at our heels, we found the structure 
merely a relic of gentility. There was scarcely 
a whole pane of glass in the house, there were 
eight or ten wretchedly dirty and ragged chil- 
dren, the parents were repulsive in appear- 
ance and manner, and a glimpse of the interior 
presented a picture of squalor which would 
have shocked a city missionary. The stately 
stone house was a den of the most abject and 
shiftless poverty, the like of which one could 
seldom see in the slums of a metropolis. 
•These people were in the midst of a splendid 
farming country, had an abundance of pure 
air and water at command, and there seemed 
to be no excuse for their condition. Drink 
6 



82 Historic Waterways, 

and laziness were doubtless the besetting sins 
in this uncanny home. Making a pretense of 
inquiring the distance to Byron, the next vil- 
lage below, we hurried from the accursed 
spot. 

A half-hour later we reached the high 
bridge of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. 
Paul railway, above Byron, and ran our bow 
on a little beach at the base of the left bank, 
which is here thirty feet high. A section- 
man had a little cabin hard by, and his gaunt, 
talkative wife, with a chubby little boy by her 
side, had been keenly watching our approach 
from her garden-fence. She greeted us with 
a shrill but cheery voice as we clambered up 
a zigzag path and joined her upon the edge of 
the prairie. 

" Good ev'nin', folks ! Whar 'n earth d' ye 
come from 1 " 

We enlightened her in a few words. 

"Don't mean t' say ye come all the way 
from Weesconsin a' down here in that thing } " 
pointing down at the canoe, which certainly 
looked quite small, at that depth, in the 
dim twilight. 

" Certainly ; why not } " 

" Ye '11 git drowndid, an' I 'm not mistakin, 
afore ye git to Byron." 

" River dangerous, ma'am .-* " 



The Half- Way House. 8 



" Dang'rous ain't no name for 't There 
was a young feller drovvndid at this here 
bridge las' spring. The young feller he 
worked at the bridge-mendin', bein' a car- 
penter, — he called himself a carpenter, but 
he war n't no great fist at carpenterin', an' I 
know it, — and he boarded up at Byron. A 
'nsurance agint kim 'long and got Rollins, — 
the young feller his name was Abe Rollins, 
an' he was a bach, — to promise to 'sure his 
life for a thousand dollars, which was to go t' 
his sister, what takes in washin', an' her man 
ran away from her las' year an' nobody knows 
where he is, — which I says is good riddance, 
but she takes on as though she had los' some- 
body worth cryin' over : there 's no account- 
in' for tastes. The agint says to Rollins to 
go over to the doctor's of'c' to git 'xamined 
and Rollins says, ' No, I ain't agoin' to git 
'xamined till I clean off; I '11 go down an' take 
a swim at the bridge and then come back and 
strip for the doctor.' An' Rollins he took 
his swim and got sucked "down inter a hole just 
yonder down there, by the openin' of Still- 
man's Creek, and he was a corpse when they 
hauled him out, down off Byron ; an' he never 
hollered once but jist sunk like a stone with 
a cramp ; an' his folks never got no 'nsurance 
money at all, for lackin' the doctor's c'tifi- 



84 Historic Waterways, 

cate. An it 's heaps o' folks git drowndid in 
this river, an' nobody ever hears of 'em agin ; 
an' I would n't no more step foot in that boat 
nor the biggest ship on the sea, an' I don't 
see how you can do it, ma'am ! " 

No doubt the good woman would have 
rattled on after this fashion for half the night, 
but we felt obliged, owing to the rapidly in- 
creasing darkness, to interrupt her with geo- 
graphical inquiries. She assured us that 
Byron was distant some five or six miles by 
river, with, so far as she had heard, many 
shallows, whirlpools, and snags en roiite ; 
while by land the village was but a mile and 
a quarter across the prairie, from the bridge. 
We accordingly made fast for the night 
where we had landed, placed our heaviest bag- 
gage in the tidy kitchen-sitting-room-parlor 
of our voluble friend, and trudged off over the 
fields to Byron, — a solitary light in a window 
and the occasional practice-note of a brass 
band, borne to us on the light western breeze, 
being our only guides. 

After a deal of stumbling over a rough and 
ill-defined path, which we could distinguish 
by the sense of feeling alone, we finally 
reached the exceedingly quiet little village, 
and by dint of inquiry from house to house, — 
in most of which the denizens seemed pre- 



The Half -Way House, 85 

paring to retire for the night, — found the inn 
which had been recommended by the section- 
man's wife as the best in town. It was the 
only one. There were several commercial 
travelers in the place, and the hostelry was 
filled. But the landlord kindly surrendered 
to us his own well-appointed chamber, above 
an empty store where the village band was 
tuning up for Decoration Day. It seemed 
appropriate enough that there should be music 
to greet us, for we were now one hundred 
and thirty-four miles from Madison, and 
practically half through our voyage to the 
Mississippi. 



CHAPTER V. 



GRAND DETOUR FOLKS. 



WE tramped back to the bridge in high 
spirits next morning, over the flower- 
strewn prairie. The section-man's wife was 
on hand, with her entire step-laddered brood 
of six, to see us off. As we carried down our 
traps to the beach and repacked, she kept up 
a continuous strain of talk, giving us a most 
edifying review of her life, and especially the 
particulars of how she and her ** man " had 
first romantically met, while he was a gravel- 
train hand on a far western railroad, and she 
the cook in a portable construction-barracks. 
Stillman's Creek opens into the Rock from 
the east, through a pleasant glade, a few rods 
below the bridge. We took a pull up this 
historic tributary for a half-mile or more. 
It is a muddy stream, some two and a half 
rods wide, cutting down for a half-dozen feet 
through the black soil. The shores are gen- 



Grand Detour Folks. ^j 

erally well fringed with heavy timber, espe- 
cially upon the northern bank, while the land 
to the south and southwest stretches upward, 
in gentle slopes, to a picturesque rolling prai- 
rie, abounding in wooded knolls. It was in 
the large grove on the north bank, near its 
junction with the Rock, that Black Hawk, in 
the month of May, 1832, parleyed with the 
Pottawattomies. It was here that on the 
14th of that month he learned of the treach- 
ery of Stillman's militiamen, and at once 
made that famous sally with his little band 
of forty braves which resulted in the rout of 
the cowardly whites, who fled pell-mell over 
the prairie toward Dixon, asserting that 
Black Hawk and two thousand blood-thirsty 
warriors were sweeping northern Illinois with 
the besom of destruction. The country round 
about appears to have undergone no appre- 
ciable change in the half-century intervening 
between that event and to-day. The topo- 
graphical descriptions given in contempora- 
neous accounts of Stillman's flight will hold 
good now, and we were readily able to pick 
out the points of interest on the old battle- 
field. 

Returning to the Rock, we made excellent 
progress. The atmosphere was bracing ; and 
there being a favoring northwest breeze, our 



88 Historic Waterways, 

awning was stretched over a hoop for a sail. 
The banks were now steep inclines of white 
sand and gravel. It was like going through 
a railroad cut. But in ascending the sides, as 
we did occasionally, to secure supplies from 
farm-houses or refill our canteen wiJ;h fresh 
water, there were found broad expanses of 
rolling prairie. The farm establishments in- 
crease in number and prosperity. Windmills 
may be counted by the scores, the cultiva- 
tion of enormous cornfields is everywhere in 
progress, and cattle are more numerous than 
ever. 

Three or four miles above Oregon the banks 
rise to the dignity of hills, which come sweep- 
ing down " with verdure clad " to the very 
water's edge, and present an inspiring picture, 
quite resembling some of the most charming 
stretches of the Hudson. At the entrance to 
this lovely vista we encountered a logy little 
pleasure-steamer anchored in the midst of 
the stream, which is here nearly half of a mile 
wide, for the river now perceptibly broadens. 
The captain, a ponderous old sea-dog, wear- 
ing a cowboy's hat and having the face of an 
operatic pirate, with a huge pipe between 
his black teeth, sat lounging on the bulwark, 
watching the force of the current, into which 
he would listlessly expectorate. He was at 



Grand Detour Folks. 89 

first inclined to be surly, as we hauled along- 
side and checked our course ; but gradually 
softened down as we drew him out in con- 
versation, and confided to us that he had in 
earlier days " sailed the salt water," a circum- 
stance of which he seemed very proud. He 
also gave us some " pointers on the lay o' the 
land," as he called them, for our future guid- 
ance down the river, — one of which was that 
there were " dandy sceneries " below Oregon, 
in comparison with which we had thus far 
seen nothing worthy of note. As for himself, 
he said that his place on the neighboring shore 
was connected by telephone with Oregon, and 
his steamer frequently transported pleasure 
parties to points of interest above the dam. 

Ganymede Spring is on the southeast bank, 
at the base of a lofty sandstone bluff, a mile or 
so above Oregon. From the top of the bluff, 
which is ascended by a succession of steep 
flights of scaffolding stairs, a magnificent 
bird's-eye view is attainable of one of the 
finest river and forest landscapes in the 
Mississippi basin. The grounds along the 
riverside at the base are laid out in grace- 
ful carriage drives ; and over the head of 
a neatly hewn basin, into which gushes the 
copious spring, is a marble slab thus in- 
scribed : — 



90 Historic Waterways. 



GANYMEDE'S SPRINGS, 

named by 

Margeret Fuller (Countess D. Ossoli,) 

who named this bhiff 

EAGLE'S NEST, 

& beneath the cedars on its crest wrote 

" Ganymede to his Eagle," 

July 4, 1843. 



Oregon was reached just before noon. A 
walk through the business quarter revealed a 
thrifty, but oldish-looking town of about two 
thousand inhabitants. The portage on the 
east side, around a flouring-mill dam, in- 
volved a hard pull up the gravelly bank thirty 
feet high, and a haul of two blocks' length 
along a dusty street. 

There was a fine stretch of eroded pali- 
sades in front of the island on which we 
lunched. The color effect was admirable, — 
patches of gray, brown, white, and old gold, 
much corroded with iron. Vines of many 
varieties dangle from earth-filled crevices, 
and swallows by the hundreds occupy the 
dimples neatly hollowed by the action of 
the water in some ancient period when the 
stream was far broader and deeper than now. 

But at times, even in our day, the Rock is 



Grand Detour Folks, 9 1 

a raging torrent. The condition of the trees 
along the river banks and on the thickly- 
strewn island pastures, shows that not many 
months before it must have been on a wild 
rampage, for the great trunks are barked by 
the ice to the height of fifteen feet above the 
present water-level. Everywhere, on banks 
and islands, are the evidences of disastrous 
floods, and the ponderous ice-breakers above 
the bridges give one an awesome notion of the 
condition of affairs at such a time. Farmers 
assured us that in the spring of 1887 the 
water was at the highest stage ever recorded 
in the history of the valley. Many of the 
railway bridges barely escaped destruction, 
while the numerous river ferries and the low 
country bridges in the bayous were destroyed 
by scores. The banks were overflowed for 
miles together, and back in the country for 
long distances, causing the hasty removal 
of families and live-stock from the bottoms ; 
while ice jams, forming at the heads of the 
islands, would break, and the shattered floes 
go sweeping down with terrific force, crush- 
ing the largest trees like reeds, tearing away 
fences and buildings, covering islands and 
meadows with deep deposits of sand and 
mud, blazing their way through the forested 
banks, and creating sad havoc on every hand. 



92 Historic Waterways, 

We were amply convinced, by the thousands 
of broken trees which littered our route, 
the snags, the mud-baked islands, the fre- 
quent stretches of sadly demoralized bank 
that had not yet had time to reweave its 
charitable mantle of verdure, that the Rock, 
on such a spring " tear," must indeed be a 
picture of chaos broken loose. This ex- 
plained why these hundreds of beautiful and 
spacious islands — many of them with charm- 
ing combinations of forest and hillock and 
meadow, and occasionally enclosing pretty 
ponds blushing with water-lilies — are none 
of them inhabited, but devoted to the pasture 
of cattle, who swim or ford the intervening 
channels, according to the stage of the flood ; 
also why the picturesque bottoms on the 
main shore are chiefly occupied by the poor- 
est class of farmers, who eke out their meagre 
incomes with the spoils of the gun and 
line. 

It was a quarter of five when we beached 
at the upper ferry-landing at Grand Detour. 
It is a little, tumble-down village of one or 
two small country stores, a church, and a 
dozen modest cottages ; there is also, on the 
river front, a short row of deserted shops, 
their paintless battlement-fronts in a sadly 
collapsed condition, while hard by are the 



Grand Detour Folks. 93 

ruins of two or three dismantled mills. The 
settlement is on a bit of prairie at the base of 
the preliminary flourish of the "big bend " of 
the Rock, — hence the name, Grand Detour, 
a reminiscence of the early French explorers. 
The foot of the peninsula is but half a mile 
across, while the distance around by river to 
the lower ferry, on the other side of the vil- 
lage is four miles. Having learned that the 
bottoms below here were, for a long distance, 
peculiarly gloomy and but sparsely inhabited, 
we thought it best to pass the night at Grand 
Detour. Bespeaking accommodations at the 
tavern and post-office combined, we rowed 
around the bend to the lower landing, through 
some lovely stretches of river scenery, in 
which bold palisades and delightful little 
meadows predominated. 

The walk back to the village was through 
a fine park of elms. The stage was just in 
from Dixon, with the mail. There was an 
eager little knot of villagers in the cheerful 
sitting-room of our homelike inn, watching 
the stout landlady as she distributed it in 
a checker-board rank of glass-faced boxes 
fenced off in front of a sunny window. It 
did not appear that many of those who over- 
looked the distribution of the mail had been 
favored by their correspondents. They were 



94 Historic Waterways. 

chiefly concerned in seeing who did get letters 
and papers, and in "passin' the time o' day," 
as gossiping is called in rural communities. 
Seated in a darkened corner, waiting pa- 
tiently for supper, the announcement of which 
was an hour or more in coming, we were much 
amused at the mirror of local events which 
was unconsciously held up for us by these 
loungers of both sexes and all ages, who 
fairly filled the room, and oftentimes waxed 
hot in controversy. 

The central theme of conversation was the 
preparations under way for Decoration Day, 
which was soon to arrive. Grand Detour 
was to be favored with a speaker from Dixon, 
— "a reg'lar major from the war, gents, an' 
none o' yer m'lish fellers ! " an enthusiastic 
old man with a crutch persisted in announc- 
ing:. There were to be services at the church, 
and some exercises at the cemetery, where He 
buried the half-dozen honored dead, Grand 
Detour's sacrifice upon the altar of the Union. 
The burning question seemed to be whether 
the village preacher would consent to offer 
prayer upon the occasion, if the church choir 
insisted on being accompanied on the brand- 
new cabinet organ which the congregation 
had voted to purchase, but to which the pas- 
tor and one of the leading deacons were said 



Grand Detour Folks, 95 

to be bitterly opposed, as smacking of world- 
liness and antichrist. Only the evening 
before, this deacon, armed with a sledge- 
hammer and rope, had been seen to go to 
the sanctuary in company with his " hired 
man," and enter through one of the windows, 
which they pried up for the purpose. A good 
gossip, who lived hard by, closely watched 
such extraordinary proceedings. There was 
a great noise within, then some planks were 
pitched out of the window, soon followed by 
the deacon and his man. The window was 
shut down, the planks thrown atop of the 
horse-shed roof, and the men disappeared. 
Investigation in the morning by the witness 
revealed the fact that the choir-seats and the 
organ-platform had been torn down and re- 
moved. Here was a pretty how d' do ! The 
wiry, raspy little woman, with her gray finger- 
curls and withered, simpering smile, had, with 
great forbearance, kept her choice bit of news 
to herself till " post-office time." Sitting in 
a big rocking-chair close to the delivery win- 
dow, knitting vigorously on an elongated 
stocking, she demurely asserted that she 
'' never wanted to say nothin* 'gin' nobody, 
or to hurt nobody's feelin's," and then de- 
tailed the entire circumstance to the patrons 
of the office as they came in. The excite- 



96 Historic Waterways, 

ment created by the story, which doubtless 
lost nothing in the telUng, was at fever-heat. 
We were sorely tempted to remain over till 
Decoration Day, — when, it was freely pre- 
dicted, there " would be some folks as 'd wish 
they'd never been born," — and see the out- 
come of this tempest in a teapot. But our 
programme, unfortunately, would not admit 
of such a diversion. 

Others came and went, but the gossipy 
little body with the gray curls rocked on, 
holding converse with both post-mistress and 
public, keeping a keen eye on the character 
of the mail matter obtained by the villagers 
and neighboring farmers, and freely comment- 
ing on it all ; so that new-comers were kept 
quite well-informed as to the correspondence 
of those who had just departed. 

A sad-eyed little woman in rusty black 
modestly slipped in, and was handed out a 
much-creased and begrimed envelope, which 
she nervously clutched. She was hurrying 
silently away, when the gossip sharply ex- 
claimed, " Good lands, Cynthi' Prescott! some 
folks don't know a body when they meet. 
'Spose ye 've been hearin' from Jim at last. 
I 'd been thinkin' 't was about time ye got a 
letter from his hand, ef he war ever goin' 
t' write at all. Tell ye, Cynthi' Prescott, 



Grand Detour Folks. 97 

ye 're too indulgent on that man o' yourn ! 
Ef I — " 

But Cynthia Prescott, turning her black, 
deep-sunken eyes to her inquisitor, with a 
piteous, tearful look, as though stung to the 
quick, sidled out backward through the wire- 
screen door, which sprung closed with a 
vicious bang, and I saw her hurrying down 
the village street firmly grasping at her bosom 
what the mail had brought her, — probably a 
brutal demand for more money, from a worth- 
less husband, who was wrecking his life-craft 
on some far-away shore. 

" Goodness me ! but the Gilberts is a-put- 
tin' on style ! " ejaculated the village censor, 
as a rather smart young horseman went out 
with a bunch of letters, and a little packet 
tied up in red twine. " That there was vis'tin' 
keerds from the printer's shop in Dixon, an' 
cost a dollar ; can't fool me ! There 's some 
folks as hev to be leavin' keerds on folks's 
centre-tables when they goes makin' calls, for 
fear folks will be a-forgettin* their names. 
When I go a-callin', I go a-visitin' and take 
my work along an' stop an' hev a social cup 
o' tea ; an' they ain't a-goin' to forgit for 
awhile, that I dropped in on 'em, neither. 
This way they hev down in Dixon, what I 
hear of, of ringin' at a bell and settin' down 



98 Historic Waterways. 

with yer bonnet on and sayin', ' How d' do,' 
an' a 'Pretty well, I thank yer,' and jumpin' 
up as if the fire bell was ringin' and goin' on 
through the whole n'ighberhood as ef ye 're 
on springs, an' then a-trancin' back home and 
braggin' how many calls ye 've made, — I 
ain't got no use for that ; it '11 do for Dixon 
folks, what catch the style from Chicargy, 
an' they git 't from Paris each year, I 'm told, 
but I ain't no use for 't. Mebbe ol' man 
Gilbert is made o' money, — his women folks 
act so, with all this a-apein' the Clays, who 's 
been gettin' visitin' keerds all the way from 
Chicargy, which they ordered of a book agint 
last fall, with gilt letters an' roses an' sich like 
in the corners. An' 'twas Clay's brother-in- 
law as tol' me he never did see such carryin's- 
on over at the old house, with letter-writin' 
paper sopped in cologne, an' lace curtains in 
the bed-room winders. An' ye can't tell me 
but the Gilberts, too, is a-goin' to the dogs, 
with their paper patterns from Dixon, and dress 
samples from a big shop in Chicargy, which 
I seen from the picture on the envelope was 
as big as all Grand Detour, an' both ferry- 
landin's thrown in. Grand Detour fashi'ns 
ain't good 'nough for some folks, I reckon." 

And thus the busy-tongued woman dis- 
coursed in a vinegary tone upon the character- 



Grand Detour Folks. 99 

istics of Grand Detour folks, as illustrated by 
the nature of the evening mail, frequently 
interspersing her remarks with a hearty dis- 
claimer of anything malicious in her tempera- 
ment. At last, however, the supper-bell rang ; 
the doughty postmistress, who had been re- 
markably discreet throughout all this village 
tirade, having darted in and out between the 
kitchen and the office, attending to her dual 
duties, locked the postal gate with a snap, 
and asked her now solitary patron, " Any- 
thing I can do for you, Maria ? " The gossip 
gathered up her knitting, hastily averred that 
she had merely dropped in for her weekly 
paper, but now remembered that this was not 
the day for it, and ambled off, to reload with 
venom for the next day's mail. 

After supper we walked about the peaceful, 
pretty, grass-grown village. Shearing was in 
progress at the barn of the inn, and the streets 
were filled with bleating sheep and nodding 
billy-goats. The place presented many evi- 
dences of former prosperity, and we were told 
that a dozen years before it had boasted of a 
plough factory, two or three flouring-mills, and 
a good water-power. But the railroad that it 
was expected would come to Grand Detour 
had touched Dixon instead, with the result 
that the villasre industries had been removed 



loo Historic Waterways, 

to Dixon, the dam had fallen in, and now there 
were less than three hundred inhabitants 
between the two ferries. 

When one of the store-keepers told me he 
had practically no country trade, but that his 
customers were the villagers alone, I was led 
to inquire what supported these three hundred 
people, who had no industries among them, 
no river traffic, owing to customary low water 
in summer, and who seemed to live on each 
other. Many of the villagers, I found, are 
laborers who work upon the neighboring 
farms and maintain their families here ; a few 
are farmers, the corners of whose places run 
down to the village ; others there are who 
either own or rent or " share " farms in the 
vicinity, going out to their work each day, 
much of their live stock and crops being 
housed at their village homes ; there are half 
a dozen retired farmers, who have either sold 
out their places or have tenants upon them, 
and live in the village for sociability's sake, or 
to allow their children the benefit of the ex- 
cellent local school. Mingled with these peo- 
ple are a shoemaker, a tailor, a storekeeper, 
who live upon the necessities of their neigh- 
bors. Two fishermen spend the summer 
here, in a tent, selling their daily catch to 
the villagers and neighboring farmers and 



Grand Detour Folks. i o i 

occasionally shipping by the daily mail-stage 
to Dixon, fourteen miles away. The preacher 
and his family are modestly supported ; a 
young physician wins a scanty subsistence ; 
and for considerably over half the year the 
schoolmaster shares with them what honors 
and sorrows attach to these positions of rural 
eminence. Our pleasant-spoken host was the 
driver of the Dixon stage, as well as star-route 
mail contractor, adding the conduct of a farm 
to his other duties. With his wife as post- 
mistress, and a pretty, buxom daughter, who 
waited on our table and was worth her weight 
in gold, Grand Detour folks said that he was 
bound to be a millionnaire yet. 

As Grand Detour lives, so live thousands 
of just such little rural villages all over the 
country. Viewed from the railway track or 
river channel, they appear to have been once 
larger than they are to-day. The sight of 
the unpainted houses, the ruined factory, the 
empty stores, the grass and weeds in the 
street, the lack-lustre eyes of the idlers, may 
induce one to imagine that here is the home 
of hopeless poverty and despair. But although 
the railroad which they expected never came ; 
or the railroad which did come went on and 
scheduled the place as a flag station ; still, 
there is a certain inherent vitality here, an 



I02 Historic Waterways, 

undefined something that holds these people 
together, a certain degree of hopefulness 
which cannot rise to the point of ambition, a 
serene satisfaction with the things that are. 
Grand Detour folks, and folks like them, 
are as blissfully content as the denizens of 
Chicago. 




CHAPTER VI. 

AN ANCIENT MARINER. 

T^HE clock in a neighboring kitchen was 
-i. striking six, as we reached the lower 
ferry-landing. The grass in the streets and 
under the old elms was as wet with dew as 
though there had been a heavy shower during 
the night. The village fishermen were just 
pulling in to the little pier, returning from 
an early morning trip to their ''traut-lines " 
down stream. In a long wooden cage, which 
they towed astern, was a fifty-pound sturgeon, 
together with several large cat-fish. They 
kindly hauled their cage ashore, to show us 
the monsters, which they said would prob- 
ably be shipped, alive, to a Chicago restau- 
rant which they occasionally furnished with 
curiosities in their line. These fishermen 
were rough-looking fellows in their battered 
hats and ragged, dirty overcoats, with faces 
sadly in need of water and a shave. They 



I04 Historic Waterways, 

had a sad, pinched-up appearance as well, as 
though the dense fog, which was but just now 
yielding to the influence of the sun, had pen- 
etrated their bones and given them the chills. 
On engaging them in friendly conversation 
about their calling, they exhibited good man- 
ners and some knowledge of the outer world. 
Their business, they said, was precarious and, 
as we could well see, involved much expos- 
ure and hardship. Sometimes it meant a 
start at midnight, often amid rainstorms, fogs, 
or chilling weather, with a hard pull back 
again up-stream, — for their lines were all of 
them below Grand Detour ; but to return 
with an empty boat, sometimes their luck, 
was harder yet. Knocking about in this way, 
all of the year around, — for their winters 
were similarly spent upon the lower waters 
and bayous of the Mississippi, — neither of 
them was ever thoroughly well. One was 
consumptively inclined, he told me, and being 
an old soldier, was receiving a small pension. 
A claim agent had him in hand, however, and 
his thoughts ran largely upon the prospects 
of an increase by special legislation. He 
seemed to have but little doubt that he would 
ultimately succeed. When he came into this 
looked-for fortune, he said, he would *' quit 
knockin 'round an' killin' myself fishin'," 



An Ancient Mariner, 105 

settle down in Grand Detour for the balance 
of his days, raising his own "garden sass, 
pigs, and cow ; " and some fine day would 
make a trip in his boat to the " old home 
in Injianny, whar I was raised an' 'listed in 
the war." His face fairly gleamed with pleas- 
ure as he thus dwelt upon the flowers of 
fancy which the pension agent had cultivated 
within him ; and W sympathetically ex- 
claimed, when we had swung into the stream 
and bidden farewell to these men who fol- 
lowed the calling of the apostles, that were 
she a congressman she would certainly vote 
for the fisherman's claim, and make happy 
one more heart in Grand Detour. 

Now commences the Great Bend of the 
Rock River. The water circuit is fourteen 
miles, the distance gained being but six by 
land. The stream is broad and shallow, 
between palisades densely surmounted with 
trees and covered thick with vines ; great 
willow islands freely intersperse the course ; 
everywhere are evidences of ice-floes, which 
have blazed the trees and strewn the islands 
with fallen trunks and driftwood, — a tornado 
could not have created more general havoc. 
The visible houses, few of them inviting in 
appearance, are miles apart. As had been 
foretold at the village, the outlook for lodg- 



io6 Historic Waterways. 

ings in this dismal region is not at all encour- 
aging. It was well that we had stopped at 
Grand Detour. 

Below the bend, where the country is more 
open, though the banks are still deep-cut, the 
highway to Dixon skirts the river, and for sev- 
eral miles we kept company with the stage. 

Dixon was sighted at lo o'clock. • A circus 
had pitched its tents upon the northern bank, 
just above the dam, near where we landed for 
the carry, and a crowd of small boys came 
swarming down the bank to gaze upon us, 
possibly imagining, at first, that our outfit was 
a part of the show. They accompanied us, at 
a respectful distance, as we pulled the canoe 
up a grassy incline and down through the 
vine-clad arches of a picturesque old ruin of 
a mill. Below the dam, we rowed over to the 
town, about where the famous pioneer ferry 
used to be. It was in the spring of 1826 that 
John Boles opened a trail from Peoria to 
Galena, by the way of the present locality of 
Dixon, thus shortening a trail which had been 
started by one Kellogg the year before, but 
crossed the Rock a few miles above. The 
site of Dixon at once sprang into wide popu- 
larity as a crossing-place, Indians being em- 
ployed to do the ferrying. Their manner 
was simple. Lashing two canoes abreast, the 



An Ancient Mariner, 107 

wheels of one side of a wagon were placed in 
one canoe and the opposite wheels in the 
other. The horses were made to swim be- 
hind. In 1827 a Peoria man named Begordis 
erected a small shanty here and had half 
finished a ferry-boat when the Indians, not 
favoring competition, burned the craft on its 
stocks and advised Begordis to return to 
Peoria ; being a wise man, he returned. The 
next year, Joe Ogie, a Frenchman, one of a 
race that the red men loved, and having a 
squaw for his wife, was permitted to build a 
scow, and thenceforth Indians were no longer 
needed there as common carriers. By the 
time of the Black Hawk war, Dixon, from 
whom the subsequent settlement was named, 
ran the ferry, and the crossing station had 
henceforth a name in history. A trail in those 
early days was quite as important as a railroad 
is to-day ; settlements sprang up along the im- 
proved " Kellogg's trail," and Dixon was the 
centre of interest in all northern Illinois. In- 
deed, it being for years the only point where 
the river could be crossed by ferry, Dixon was 
as important a landmark to the settlers of the 
southern half of Wisconsin who desired to go 
to Chicago, as any within their own territory.^ 

1 See Mrs. Kinzie's " Wau-Bun " for a description of the 
difficulties of travel in " the early day," via Dixon's Ferry. 



io8 Historic Waterways. 

The Dixon of to-day shelters four thousand 
inhabitants and has two or three busy mills ; 
although it is noticeable that along the water- 
power there are some half-dozen mill proper- 
ties that have been burned, torn down, or 
deserted, which does not look well for the 
manufacturing prospects of the place. The 
land along the river banks is a flat prairie 
some half-mile in width, with rolling country 
beyond, sprinkled with oak groves. The 
banks are of black, sandy loam, from twelve 
to twenty feet high, based with sandy beaches. 
The shores are now and then cut with deep 
ravines, at the mouths of which are fine, 
gravelly beaches, sometimes forming consid- 
erable spits. These indicate that the dry, 
barren gullies, the gutters of the hillocks, 
while innocent enough in a drought, some- 
times rise to the dignity of torrents and sud- 
denly pour great volumes of drainage into the 
rapidly filling river, — so often described in 
the journals of early travelers through this 
region, as "the dark and raging Rock." This 
sort of scenery, varied by occasional limestone 
palisades, — the interesting and picturesque 
feature of the Rock, from which it derived 
its name at the hands of the aborigines, — 
extends down to beyond Sterling. 

This city, reached at 3.50 p. m., is a busy 



An Ancient Mariner. 109 

place of ten thousand inhabitants, engaged 
in miscellaneous manufactures. Our port- 
age was over the south and dry end of the 
dam. We were helped by three or four bright, 
intelligent boys, who were themselves carry- 
ing over a punt, preparatory to a fishing ex- 
pedition below. Amid the hundreds of boys 
whom we met at our various portages, these 
well-bred Sterling lads were the only ones 
who even offered their assistance. Very 
likely, however, the reason may be traced to 
the fact that this was Saturday, and a school 
holiday. The boys at the week-day carries 
were the riff-raff, who are allowed to loaf upon 
the river-banks when they should be at their 
school-room desks. 

While mechanically pulling a " fisherman's 
stroke " down stream I was dreamily reflect- 
ing upon the necessity of enforced popular 
education, when W , vigilant at the steers- 
man's post, mischievously broke in upon the 
brown study with, "Como's next station! 
Twenty minutes for supper ! " 

And sure enough, it was a quarter past six, 
and there was Como nestled upon the edge of 
the high prairie-bank. I went up into the 
hamlet to purchase a quart of milk for supper, 
and found it a little dead-alive community of 
perhaps one hundred and twenty-five people. 



no Historic Waterways, 

There is the brick shell of a fire-gutted fac- 
tory, with several abandoned stores, a dozen 
houses from which the paint had long since 
scaled, a rather smart-looking schoolhouse, 
and two brick dwellings of ancient pattern, — 
the homes of well-to-do farmers ; while here 
and there were grass-grown depressions, which 
I was told were once the cellars of houses 
that had been moved away. On the return 
to the beach a bevy of open-mouthed women 
and children accompanied me, plying questions 
with a simplicity so rare that there was no 

thought of impertinence. W was talking 

with the old gray-haired ferryman, who had 
been transporting a team across as we had 
landed beside his staging. The old man 
had stayed behind, avowedly to mend his boat, 
with a stone for a hammer, but it was quite 
apparent that curiosity kept him, rather than 
the needs of his scow. He confided to us 
that Como — which was indeed prettily situ- 
ated upon a bend of the river — had once been 
a prosperous town. But the railroad went to 
some rival place, and — the familiar story — 
the dam at Como rotted, and the village fell 
into its present dilapidated state. It is the 
fate of many a small but ambitious town 
upon a river. Settled originally because of 
the river highway, the railroads — that have 



An Ancient Marmer, 1 1 1 

nearly killed the business of water transpor- 
tation — did not care to go there because it 
was too far out of the short-cut path selected 
by the engineers between two more promi- 
nent points. Thus the community is " side- 
tracked," — to use a bit of railway slang ; and 
a side-tracked town becomes in the new civili- 
zation — which cares nothing for the rivers, 
but clusters along the iron ways — a town 
**as dead as a door-nail." 

We had luncheon on a high bank just out 
of sight of Como. By the time we had 
reached a point three or four miles below the 
village it was growing dark, and time to hunt 
for shelter. While I walked, or rather ran, 
along the north bank looking for a farm-house, 

W guided the canoe down a particularly 

rapid current. It was really too dark to prose- 
cute the search with convenience. I was 
several times misled by clumps of trees, and 
fruitlessly climbed over board or crawled under 
barbed-wire fences, and often stumbled along 
the dusty highway which at times skirted the 
bank. It was over a mile before an undoubt- 
ed windmill appeared, dimly silhouetted against 
the blackening sky above a dense growth of 
river-timber a quarter of a mile down the 

stream. A whistle, and W shot the craft 

into the mouth of a black ravine, and clam- 



112 Historic Waterways, 

bered up the bank, at the serious risk of torn 
clothing from the thicket of blackberry-vines 
and locust saplings which covered it. To- 
gether we emerged upon the highway, deter- 
mined to seek the windmill on foot ; for it 
would have been impossible to sight the place 
from the river, which was now, from the over- 
hanging trees on both shores and islands, as 
dark as a cavern. Just as we stepped upon 
the narrow road — which we were only able 
to distinguish because the dust was lighter in 
color than the vegetation — a farm-team came 
rumbling along over a neighboring culvert, 
and rolled into view from behind a fringe of 
bushes. The horses jumped and snorted as 
they suddenly sighted our dark forms, and 
began to plunge. The women gave a mild 
shriek, and awakened a small child which one 
of them carried in her arms. I essayed to 
snatch the bits of the frightened horses to pre- 
vent them from running away, for the women 

had dropped the lines, while W called 

out asking if there was a good farm-house 
where the windmill was. The team quieted 
down under a few soothing strokes ; but the 
women persisted in screaming and uttering 
incoherent imprecations in German, while 
the child fairly roared. So I returned the 
lines to the woman in charge, and we bade 



A 71 Ancient Mariner. 1 1 3 

them " Guten Nacht." As they whipped up 
their animals and hurried away, with fearful 
backward glances, it suddenly occurred to us 
that we had been taken for footpads. 

We were so much amused at our adventure, 
as we walked along, almost groping our way, 
that we failed to notice a farm-gate on the 
river side of the road, until a chorus of dogs, 
just over the fence, arrested our attention. 
A half-dozen human voices were at once heard 
calling back the animals. A light shone in 
thin streaks through a black fringe of lilac- 
bushes, and in front of these was the gate. 
Opening the creaky structure, we advanced 
cautiously up what we felt to be a gravel walk, 
under an arch of evergreens and lilacs, with 
the paddle ready as a club, in case of another 
dog outbreak. But there was no need of it, 
and we soon emerged into a flood of light, 
which proceeded from a shadeless lamp within 
an open window. 

It was a spacious white farm-house. Upon 
the " stoop " of an L were standing, in atti- 
tudes of expectancy, a stout, well-fed, though 
rather sinister-expressioned elderly man, with 
a long gray beard, and his raw-boned, over- 
worked wife, with two fair but dissatisfied- 
looking daughters, and several sons, ranging 
from twelve to twenty years. A few moments 
8 



1 1 4 Historic Waterways. 

of explanation dispelled the suspicious look 
with which we had been greeted, and it was 
soon agreed that we should, for a considera- 
tion, be entertained for the night and over 
Sunday ; although the good woman protested 
that her house was *' topsy-turvy, all torn up " 
with house-cleaning, — which excuse, by the 
way, had become quite familiar by this time, 
having been current at every house we had 
thus far entered upon our journey. 

Bringing our canoe down to the farmer's 
bank and hauling it up into the bushes, we 
returned through the orchard to the house, 
laden with baggage. Our host proved to be 
a famous story-teller. His tales, often Mun- 
chausenese, were inclined to be ghastly, and 
he had an o'erweening fondness for inconse- 
quential detail, like some authors of serial 
tales, who write against space and tax the pa- 
tience of their readers to its utmost endurance. 
But while one may skip the dreary pages of 
the novelist, the circumstantial story-teller 
must be borne with patiently, though the 
hours lag with leaden heels. In earlier days 
the old man had been something of a traveler, 
having journeyed to Illinois by steamboat 
on the upper lakes, from " ol' York State ; " 
another time he went down the Mississippi 
River to Natchez, working his way as a deck 



An Ancient Mariner, 1 1 5 

hand ; but the crowning event of his career 
was his having, as a driver, accompanied 
a cattle-train to New York city. A few 
years ago he tumbled down a well and was 
hauled up something of a cripple ; so that his 
occupation chiefly consists in sitting around 
the house in an easy-chair, or entertaining the 
crowd at the cross-roads store with sturdy tales 
of his adventures by land and sea, spiced with 
vigorous opinions on questions of poHtics and 
theology. The garrulity of age, a powerful 
imagination, and a boasting disposition are 
his chief stock in trade. 

Propped up in his great chair, with one leg 
resting upon a lounge and the other aiding 
his iron-ferruled cane in pounding the floor 
by way of punctuating his remarks, " that 
ancient mariner " 

'' Held us with his glittering eye; 
We could not choose but hear." 

His tales were chiefly of shooting and stab- 
bing scrapes, drownings and hangings that he 
claimed to have seen, dwelling upon each 
incident with a blood-curdling particularity 
worthy of the reporter of a sensational metro- 
politan journal. The ancient man must have 
fairly walked in blood through the greater part 
of his days ; while from the number of corpses 



ii6 Historic Waterways, 

that had been fished out of the river, at the 
head of a certain island at the foot of his or- 
chard, and "laid out" in his best bedroom by 
the coroner, we began to feel as though we 
had engaged quarters at a morgue. It was 
painfully evident that these recitals were 
" chestnuts " in the house of our entertainer. 
The poor old lady had a tired-out, unhappy 
appearance, the dissatisfied-looking daughters 
yawned, and the sons talked, sotto voce^ on 
farm matters and neighborhood gossip. 

Finally, we tore away, much to the relief of 
every one but the host, and were ushered with 
much ceremony into the ghostly bed-chamber, 
the scene of so many coroner's inquests. I 
must confess to uncanny dreams that night, 
— confused visions of Rock River giving up 
innumerable corpses, which I was compelled 
to assist in " laying out " upon the very bed I 
occupied. 




CHAPTER VII. 

STORM-BOUND AT ERIE. 

WE were somewhat jaded by the time 
Monday morning came, for Sunday 
brought not only no relief, but repetitions of 
many of the most horrible of these " tales of 
a wayside inn." It was with no slight sense 
of relief that we paid our modest bill and at 
last broke away from such ghastly associa- 
tions. An involuntary shudder overcame me, 
as we passed the head of the island at the 
foot of our host's orchard, which he had de- 
scribed as a catch-basin for human floaters. 

Our course still lay among large, densely 
wooded islands, — many of them wholly given 
up to maples and willows, — and deep cuts 
through sun-baked mudbanks, the color of 
adobe ; but occasionally there are low, gloomy 
bottoms, heavily forested, and strewn with 
flood-wood, while beyond the land rises gradu- 
ally into prairie stretches. In the bottoms 



1 1 8 Historic Waterways, 

the trees are filled with flocks of birds, — 
crows, hawks, blackbirds, with stately blue 
herons and agile plovers foraging on the long 
gravel-spits which frequently jut far into the 
stream ; ducks are frequently seen sailing 
near the shores ; while divers silently dart 
and plunge ahead of the canoe, safely out of 
gunshot reach. A head wind this morning 
made rowing more difficult, by counteracting 
the influence of the current. 

We were at Lyndon at eleven o'clock. 
There is a population of about two hundred, 
clustered around a red paper-mill. The latter 
made a pretty picture standing out on the 
bold bank, backed by a number of huge stacks 
of golden straw. We met here the first 
rapids worthy of record ; also an old, aban- 
doned mill-dam, in the last stages of decay, 
stretching its whitened skeleton across the 
stream, a harbor for driftwood. Near the 
south bank the framework has been entirely 
swept away for a space several rods in width, 
and through this opening the pent-up current 
fiercely sweeps. We went through the centre 
of the channel thus made, with a swoop that 
gave us an impetus which soon carried our 
vessel out of sight of Lyndon and its paper-mill 
and straw-stacks. 

Prophetstown, five miles below, is prettily 



Storm-Bound at Erie, 1 1 9 

situated in an oak grove on the southern 
bank. Only the gables of a few houses can 
be seen from the river, whose banks of yellow 
clay and brown mud are here twenty-five feet 
high. During the first third of the present 
century, this place was the site of a Winne- 
bago village, whose chief was White Cloud, 
a shrewd, sinister savage, half Winnebago 
and half Sac, who claimed to be a prophet. 
He was Black Hawk's evil genius during the 
uprising of 1832, and in many ways was one 
of the most remarkable aborigines known to 
Illinois history. It was at " the prophet's 
town," as White Cloud's village was known 
in pioneer days, that Black Hawk rested upon 
his ill-fated journey up the Rock, and from 
here, at the instigation of the wizard, he bade 
the United States soldiery defiance. 

There are rapids, almost continually, from 
a mile above Prophetstown to Erie, ten miles 
below. The river bed here has a sharper 
descent than customary, and is thickly strewn 
with bowlders ; many of them were visible 
above the surface, at the low stage of water 
which we found, but for the greater part they 
were covered for two or three inches. What 
with these impediments, the snags that had 
been left as the legacy of last spring's flood, 
and the frequent sand-banks and gravel-spits, 



I20 Historic Waterways. 

navigation was attended by many difficulties 
and some dangers. 

Four or five miles below Prophetstown, a 
lone fisherman, engaged in examining a "traut- 
line" stretched between one of the numerous 
gloomy islands and the mainland, kindly in- 
formed us of a mile-long cut-off, the mouth of 
which was now in view, that would save us 
several miles of rowing. Here, the high 
banks had receded, with several miles of 
heavily wooded, boggy bottoms intervening. 
Floods had held high carnival, and the aspect 
of the country was wild and deserted. The 
cut-off was an ugly looking channel ; but 
where our informant had gone through, with 
his unwieldy hulk, we considered it safe to ven- 
ture with a canoe, so readily responsive to the 
slightest paddle-stroke. The current had torn 
for itself a jagged bed through the heart of a 
dense and moss-grown forest. It was a scene 
of howling desolation, rack and ruin upon 
every hand. The muddy torrent, at a velocity 
of fully eight miles an hour, went eddying and 
whirling and darting and roaring among the 
gnarled and blackened stumps, the prostrate 
trees, the twisted roots, the huge bowlders 
which studded its course. The stream was 
not wide enough for the oars ; the paddle was 
the sole reliance. With eyes strained for 



Storm-Bound at Erie. 121 

obstructions, we turned and twisted through 
the labyrinth, jumping along at a breakneck 
speed ; and, when we finally rejoined the main 
river below, were grateful enough, for the run 
had been filled with continuous possibilities 
of a disastrous smash-up, miles away from any 
human habitation. 

The thunder-storm which had been threat- 
ening since early morning, soon burst upon 
us with a preliminary wind blast, followed by 
drenching rain. Running ashore on the lee 
bank, we wrapped the canvas awning around 
the baggage, and made for a thick clump of 
trees on the top of an island mudbank, where 
we stood buttoned to the neck in rubber coats. 
A vigorous " Halloo ! " came sounding over 
the water. Looking up, we saw for the first 
time a small tent on the opposite shore, a 
quarter of a mile away, in front of which was 
a man shouting to us and beckoning us over. 
It was getting uncomfortably muddy under 
the trees, which had not long sufficed as an 
umbrella, and the rubber coats were not war- 
ranted to withstand a deluge, so we accepted 
the invitation with alacrity and paddled over 
through the pelting storm. 

Our host was a young fisherman, who 
helped us and our luggage up the slimy bank 
to his canvas quarters, which we found to be 



122 Historic Waterways, 

dry, although odorous of fish. While the 
storm raged without, the young man, who was 
a simple-hearted fellow, confided to us the de- 
tails of his brief career. He had been mar- 
ried but a year, he said ; his little cabin lay a 
quarter of a mile back in the woods, and, so 
as to be convenient to his lines, he was camp- 
ing on his own wood-lot ; the greater part of 
his time was spent in fishing or hunting, ac- 
cording to the season, and peddling the 
product in neighboring towns, while upon a 
few acres of clearing he raised "garden truck" 
for his household, which had recently become 
enriched by the addition of an infant son. 
The phenomenal powers of observation dis- 
played by this first-born youth were reported 
wdth much detail by the fond father, who sat 
crouched upon a boat-sail in one corner of 
the little tent, his head between his knees, and 
smoking vile tobacco in a blackened clay pipe. 
It seemed that his wife was a ferryman's 
daughter, and her father had besought his 
son-in-law to follow the same steady calling. 
To be sure, our host declared, ferries on the 
Rock River netted their owners from $400 to 
$800 a year, which he considered a goodly 
sum, and his father-in-law had offered to pur- 
chase an established plant for him. But the 
young fellow said that ferrying was a dog's 



Storm-Bound at Erie. 1 2 3 

life, and "kept a feller home like barn chores ;" 
he preferred to fish and hunt, earning far less 
but retaining independence of movement, so 
rejected the offer and settled down, avowedly 
for life, in his present precarious occupation. 
As a result, the indignant old man had for- 
bidden him to again enter the parental ferry- 
house until he agreed to accept his proposals, 
and there was henceforth to be a standing 
family quarrel. The fisherman having ap- 
pealed to my judgment, I endeavored with 
mild caution to argue him out of his position 
on the score of consideration for his wife and 
little one ; but he was not to be gainsaid, 
and firmly, though with admirable good na- 
ture, persisted in defending his roving ten- 
dencies. In the course of our conversation 
I learned that the ferrymen, who are more 
numerous on the lower than on the upper 
Rock, pay an annual license fee of five dollars 
each, in consideration of which they are guar- 
antied a monopoly of the business at their 
stands, no other line being allowed within one 
mile of an existing ferry. 

Within an hour and a half the storm had 
apparently passed over, and we continued our 
journey. But after supper another shower 
and a stiff head wind came up, and we were 
well bedraggled by the time a ferry-landing 



124 Historic Waterways. 

near the little village of Erie was reached. 
The bottoms are here a mile or two in width, 
with occasional openings in the woods, where 
small fields are cultivated by the poorer class 
of farmers, who were last spring much dam- 
aged by the flood which swept this entire 
country. 

The ferryman, a good-natured young ath- 
lete, was landing a farm-wagon and team as 
we pulled in upon the muddy roadway. 
When questioned about quarters, he smiled 
and pointing to his little cabin, a few rods 
off in the bushes, said, — " We 've four peo- 
ple to sleep in two rooms ; it 's sure we can't 
take ye ; I 'd like to, otherwise. But Erie 's 
only a mile away." 

We assured him that with these muddy 
swamp roads, and in our wet condition, noth- 
ing but absolute necessity would induce us to 
take a mile's tramp. The parley ended in our 
being directed to a small farm-house a quarter 
of a mile inland, where luckless travelers, be- 
lated on the dreary bottoms, w^ere occasionally 
kept. Making the canoe fast for the night, 
we strung our baggage-packs upon the paddle 
which we carried between us, and set out 
along a devious way, through a driving mist 
which blackened the twilight into dusk, to 
find this place of public entertainment. 



Storm-Bou7id at Erie. 



125 



It is a little, one-story, dilapidated farm- 
house, standing a short distance from the 
country road, amid a clump of poplar trees. 
Forcing our way through the hingeless gate, 
the violent removal of which threatened the 
immediate destruction of several lengths of 
rickety fence, we walked up to the open front 
door and applied for shelter. 

"Yes, ma'am ; we sometimes keeps tavern, 
ma'am," replied a large, greasy-looking, black- 
haired woman of some forty years, as, her 
hands folded within her up-turned apron, she 
courtesied to W . 

We were at once shown into a frowsy 
apartment which served as parlor, sitting-room 
and parental dormitory. There was huddled 
together an odd, slouchy combination of arti- 
cles of shabby furniture and cheap decorations, 
peculiar, in the country, to all three classes of 
rooms, the evidences of poverty, shiftlessness, 
and untasteful pretentiousness upon every 
side. A huge, wheezy old cabinet organ was 
set diagonally in one corner, and upon this, as 
we entered, a young woman was pounding 
and paddling with much vigor, while giving 
us sidelong glances of curiosity. She was a 
neighbor, on an evening visit, decked out in 
a smart jockey-cap, with a green ostrich tip 
and bright blue ribbons, and gay in a new 



126 Historic Waterways. 

calico dress, — a yellow field thickly planted 
to purple pineapples. A jaunty, forward crea- 
ture, in pimples and curls, she rattled away 
through a Moody and Sankey hymn-book, the 
w^heezes and groans of the antique instrument 
coming in like mournful ejaculations from the 
amen corner at a successful revival. Having 
exhausted her stock of tunes, she wheeled 
around upon her stool, and after declaring to 
her half-dozen admiring auditors that her 
hands were " as tired as after the mornin's 

milkin'" abruptly accosted W : ''Ma'am, 

kin ye play on the orgin ? " 

W confessed her inability, chiefly from 

lack of practice in the art of incessantly 
working the pedals. 

" That's the trick o' the hul business, ma'am, 
is the blowin'. It's all in gettin' the bellers to 
work even like. There's a good many what 
kin learn the playin' part of it without no 
teacher ; but there has to be lessons to learn 
the bellers. Don't ye have no orgin, when 
ye 're at home ? " she asked sharply, as if to 
guage the social standing of the new guest. 

W modestly confessed to never having 

possessed such an instrument. 

"Down in these parts," rejoined the young 
woman, as she " worked the bellers " into a 
strain or two of " Hold the Fort," apparently 



Storm-Bound at Erie. 127 

to show how easy it came to trained feet, " no 
house is now considered quite up to the fashi'n 
as ain't got a orgin." The rain being now 
over, she soon departed, evidently much dis- 
gusted at W 's lack of organic culture. 

The bed-chamber into which we were shown 
was a marvel. It opened off the main room 
and was, doubtless, originally a cupboard. 
Seven feet square, with a broad, roped bedstead 
occupying the entire length, a bedside space 
of but two feet wide was left. Much of this 
being filled with butter firkins, chains, a trunk, 
and a miscellaneous riff-raff of household 
lumber, the standing-room was restricted to 
two feet square, necessitating the use of the 
bed as a dressing-place, after the fashion of a 
sleeping-car bunk. This cubby-hole of a room 
was also the wardrobe for the women of 
the household, the walls above the bed being 
hung nearly two feet deep with the oddest col- 
lection of calico and gingham gowns, bustles, 
hoopskirts, hats, bonnets, and winter under- 
wear I think I had ever laid eyes on. 

Much of this condition of affairs was not 
known, however, until next morning ; for it was 
as dark as Egypt within, except for a few faint 
rays of light which came straggling through 
the cracks in the board partition separating 
us from the sitting-room candle. We had no 



128 Historic Waterways. 

sooner crossed the threshold of our little box 
than the creaky old cleat door was gently 
closed upon us and buttoned by our hostess 
upon the outside, as the only means of keep- 
ing it shut ; and we were left free to grope 
about among these mysteries as best we 
might. We had hardly recovered from our 
astonishment at thus being locked into a dark 
hole the size of a fashionable lady's trunk, 
and were quietly laughing over this odd ad- 
venture, when the landlady applied her mouth 
to a crack and shouted, as if she would have 
waked the dead : " Hi, there ! Ye 'd better 
shet the winder to keep the bugs out ! " A 
few minutes later, returning to the crack, she 
added, ^' Ef ye 's cold in the night, jest haul 
down some o' them clothes atop o' ye which 
ye '11 find on the wall." 

Repressing our mirth, we assured our good 
hostess that we would have a due regard for 
our personal safety. The window, not at first 
discernible, proved to be a hole in the wall, 
some two feet square, which brought in little 
enough fresh air, at the best. It was fortu- 
nate that the night was cool, although our 
hostess's best gowns were not needed to sup- 
plement the horse-blankets under which we 
slept the sleep of weary canoeists. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE LAST DAY OUT. 



THE following day opened brightly. We 
had breakfast in the tavern kitchen, en 
famillc. The husband, whom we had not 
met before, was a short, smooth-faced, voluble, 
overgrown-boy sort of man. The mother was 
dumpy, coarse, and good-natured. They had 
a greasy, easy-tempered daughter of eigh- 
teen, with a frowsy head, and a face like a full 
moon ; while the heir of the household, some- 
what younger, was a gaping, grinning youth 
of the Simple Simon order, who shovelled 
mashed potatoes into his mouth alternately 
with knife and fork, and took bites of bread 
large enough for a ravenous dog. The old 
grandmother, with a face like parchment and 
one gleaming eye, sat in a low rocking-chair 
by the stove, crooning over a corn-cob pipe 
and using the wood-box for a cuspadore. She 
had a vinegary, slangy tongue, and being 
9 



130 Historic Waterways, 

somewhat deaf, would break in upon the con- 
versation with remarks sharper than they 
were pat. 

With our host, a glib and rapid talker in a 
swaggering tone, one could not but be much 
amused, as he exhibited a degree of self-ap- 
preciation that was decidedly refreshing. He 
had been a veteran in the War of the Rebel- 
lion, he proudly assured us, and pointed with 
his knife to his discharge-paper, which was 
hung up in an old looking-glass frame by the 
side of the clock. 

•' Gemmen," — he invariably thus addressed 
us, as though we were a coterie of checker- 
players at a village grocery, — *^ Gemmen, 
when I seen how them Johnny Rebs was a usin' 
our boys in them prison pens down thar at 
Andersonville and Libbie and 'roun' thar, 
I jist says to myself, says I, ' Joe, my boy, 
you go now an' do some 'n' fer yer country ; 
a crack shot like you is, Joe,' says I to myself, 
' as kin hit a duck on the wing, every time, 
an' no mistake, ought n't ter be a-lyin 'roun' 
home an' doin' no'hun to put down the re- 
bellion ; it 's a shame,' says I, * when our boys 
is a-suff'r'n' down thar on Mason 'n' Dixie's 
line; ' an' so I jined, an' I stuck her out, gem- 
men, till the thing was done; they ain't no 
coward 'bout me, ef I hev the sayin' of it ! " 



The Last Day Out, 1 3 1 

"Were you wounded, sir?" asked W , 

sympathetically. 

" No, I wa' n't hurt at all, — that is, so to 
speak, wounded. But thar were a sort of a 
doctor feller 'round here las' winter, a-stoppin' 
at Erie ; an' he called at my place, an' he 
says, ' No'hun the matter wi' you, a-growin' 
out o' the war ? ' says he ; an' I says, * No'hun 
that I know'd on,' says I, — * I 'm a-eatin' my 
reg'l'r victuals whin I don't have the shakes,' 
says I. * Ah ! ' says he, ' you 've the shakes ? ' 
he says ; * an' don't you know you ketched 'em 
in the war ? ' * I ketched 'em a-gettin' m'lairy 
in the bottoms,' says I, * a-duck-shootin', in 
which I kin hit a bird on the wing every time 
an' no mistake,' says I. ' Now,' he says, 'hold 
on a minute ; you did n't hev shakes afore the 
war ? ' says he. * Not as much,' I says, not 
knowin' what the feller was drivin' at, * but 
some ; I was a kid then, and kids don't shake 
much,' says I. ' Hold up ! hold up !' he says, 
'you 're wrong, an' ye know it ; ye don't hev 
no mem'ry goin' back so far about physical 
conditions,' says he. Well, gemmen, sure 
'nough, when I kem to think things over, 
and talk it up with the doctor chap, I 'lowed 
he was right. Then he let on he was a claim 
agint, an' I let him try his hand on workin' 
up a pension for me, for he says I wa'n't to 



132 Historic Waterways, 

pay no'hun 'less the thing went through. But 
I hearn tell, down at Erie, that they is a-goin' 
agin these private claims nowadays at Wash- 
in'ton, an' I don't know what my show is. 
But I ought to hev a pension, an' no mis- 
take, gem men. They wa'n't no fellers did 
harder work 'n me in the war, ef I do say it 
myself." 

W ventured to ask what battles our 

host had been in. 

" Well, I wa'n't in no reg'lar battle, — that 
is, right in one. Thar was a few of us de- 
tailed ter tek keer of gov'ment prop'ty near 
C'lumby, South Car'liny, when Wade Hamp- 
tin was a-burnin' things down thar. We 
was four miles away from the fightin,' an' 
I was jest a-achin' to git in thar. What I 
wanted was to git a bead on ol' Wade him- 
self, — an' ef I do say it myself, the ol' man 
would 'a' hunted his hole, gemmen. When I 
get a sight on a duck, gemmen, that duck' s 
mine, an' no mistake. An' ef I'd 'a' sighted 
Wade Hamptin, then good-by Wade ! I tol' 
the cap'n what I wanted, but he said as how 
I was more use a-takin' keer of the supplies. 
That cap'n had n't no enterprise 'bout him. 
Things would *a' been different at C'lumby, 
ef I 'd had my way, an' don't ye forgit it ! 
There was heaps o' blood spilt unnecessary 



The Last Day Out, 133 

by us boys, a-fightin' to save the ol' flag, — 
an' we 're wiilin' to do it agin, gem men, an' 
no mistake ! " 

The old woman had been listening eagerly 
to this narrative, evidently quite proud of her 
boy's achievements, but not hearing all that 
had been said. She now broke out, in shrill, 
high notes, — 

"Joe ought ter 'a' had a pension, he had, wi' 
his chills 'tracted in the war. He wuk'd hard, 
Joe did, a hul ten months, doin' calvary ser- 
vice, the last year o' the war ; an' he kem 
nigh outer shootin' ol' Wade Hamptin, an' 
a-makin' a name for himself, an' p'r'aps a good 
office with a title an' all that ; only they kep' 
him back with the ammernition wagin, 'count 
o' the kurnil's jealousy, — for Joe is a dead 
shot, ma'am, if I 'm his mother as says it, and 
keeps the family in ducks half the year 'roun', 
an' the kurnil know'd Joe was a-bilin' over to 
git to the front." 

" Ah ! you were in the cavalry service, 
then 1 " I said to our landlord, by way of help- 
ing along the conversation. 

There was a momentary silence, broken by 
Simple Simon, who wiped his knife on his 
tongue, and made a wild attack on the butter 
dish. 

" Pa, he druv a mule team for gov'ment ; 



134 Historic Waterways, 

an' we got a picter in the album, tiik of him 
when he were just a-goin' inter battle, with a 
big ammernition wagin on behind. Pa, in 
the picter, is a-ridin' o' one o' the mules, an' 
any one 'd know him right off." 

This sudden revelation of the strength of 
the veteran's claim to glory and a pension, 
put a damper upon his reminiscences of the 
war; and giving the innocent Simon a savage 
leer, he soon contrived to turn the conversa- 
tion upon his wonderful exploits in duck- 
shooting and fishing — industries in the 
pursuit of which he, with so many of his 
fellow-farmers on the bottoms, appeared to be 
more eager than in tilling the soil. 

It was quite evident that the breakfast we 
were eating was a special spread in honor of 
probably the only guests the quondam tavern 
had had these many months. Canoeists 
must not be too particular about the fare set 
before them ; but on this occasion we were 
able to swallow but a few mouthfuls of the 
repast and our lunch-basket was drawn on 
as soon as we were once more afloat. It is a 
great pity that so many farmers' wives are 
the wretched cooks they are. With an abun- 
dance of good materials already about them, 
and rare opportunities for readily acquiring 
more, tens of thousands of rural dames do 



The Last Day Oiit. 135 

manage to prepare astonishingly inedible meals, 
— sour, doughy bread ; potatoes which, if 
boiled, are but half cooked, and if mashed, are 
floated with abominable butter or pastey flour 
gravy ; salt pork either swimming in a bowl 
of grease or fried to a leathery chip ; tea 
and coffee extremely weak or strong enough 
to kill an ox, as chance may dictate, and inev- 
itably adulterated beyond recognition ; eggs 
that are spoiled by being fried to the consis- 
tency of rubber, in a pan of fat deep enough 
to float doughnuts ; while the biscuits are 
yellow and bitter with saleratus. This bill of 
fare, warranted to destroy the best of appe- 
tites, will be recognized by too many of my 
readers as that to be found at the average 
American farm-house, although we all doubt- 
less know of some magnificent exceptions, 
which only prove the rule. We establish pub- 
lic cooking-schools in our cities, and econo- 
mists like Edward Atkinson and hygienists 
like the late Dio Lewis assiduously explain 
to the metropolitan poor their processes of 
making a tempting meal out of nothing ; but 
our most crying need in this country to-day 
is a training-school for rural housewives, 
where they may be taught to evolve a respect- 
able and economical spread out of the great 
abundance with which they are surrounded. 



136 Historic Waterways, 

It is no wonder that country boys drift to the 
cities, where they can obtain properly cooked 
food and live like rational beings. 

The river continues to widen as we ap- 
proach the junction with the Mississippi, — 
thirty-nine miles below Erie, — and to assume 
the characteristics of the great river into 
which it pours its flood. The islands increase 
in number and in size, some of them being 
over a mile in length by a quarter of a 
mile in breadth ; the bottoms frequently re- 
solve themselves into wide morasses, thickly 
studded with great elms, maples, and cotton- 
woods, among which the spring flood has 
wrought direful destruction. The scene be- 
comes peculiarly desolate and mournful, often 
giving one the impression of being far removed 
from civilization, threading the course of some 
hitherto unexplored stream. Penetrate the 
deep fringe of forest and morass on foot, 
however, and smiling prairies are found be- 
yond, stretching to the horizon and cut up 
into prosperous farms. The river is here 
from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad, 
but the shallows and snags are as numerous 
as ever and navigation is continually attended 
with some danger of being either grounded or 
capsized. 

Now and then the banks become firmer, 



The Last Day Out. 137 

with charming vistas of high, wooded hills 
coming down to the water's edge ; broad 
savannas intervene, decked out with varie- 
gated flora, prominent being the elsewhere 
rare atragene Americana, the spider-wort, the 
little blue lobelia, and the cup-weed. These 
savannas are apparently overflowed in times 
of exceptionally high water ; and there are 
evidences that the stream has occasionally 
changed its course, through the sunbaked 
banks of ashy-gray mud, in years long past. 

At Cleveland, a staid little village on an 
open plain, which we reached soon after the 
dinner-hour, there is an unused mill-dam go- 
ing to decay. In the centre, the main current 
has washed out a breadth of three or four 
rods, through which the pent-up stream 
rushes with a roar and a hundred whirlpools. 
It is an ugly crevasse, but a careful examina- 
tion showed the passage to be feasible, so we 
retreated an eighth of a mile up-stream, took 
our bearings, and went through with a speed 
that nearly took our breath away and appeared 
to greatly astonish a half-dozen fishermen idly 
angling from the dilapidated apron on either 
side. It was like going through Cleveland on 
the fast mail. 

Fourteen miles above the mouth of the 
Rock, is the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy 



138 Historic Waterways. 

railroad bridge, with Carbon Cliff on the 
north and Coloma on the south, each one 
mile from the river. The day had been dark, 
with occasional slight showers and a stiff head 
wind, so that progress had been slow. We 
began to deem it worth while to inquire about 
the condition of affairs at the mouth. Under 
the bridge, sitting on a bowlder at the base 
of the north abutment, an intelligent-appearing 
man in a yellow oiled-cloth suit, accompanied 
by a bright-eyed lad, peacefully fished. Stop- 
ping to question them, we found them both 
well-informed as to the railway time-tables of 
the vicinity and the topography of the lower 
river. They told us that the scenery for the 
next fourteen miles was similar, in its dark 
desolation, to that which we had passed 
through during the day ; also that owing to 
the great number of islands and the labyrinth 
of channels both in the Rock and on the east 
side of the Mississippi, we should find it 
practically impossible to know when we had 
reached the latter ; we should doubtless pro- 
ceed several miles below the mouth of the 
Rock before we noticed that the current was 
setting persistently south, and then would 
have an exceedingly difficult task in retracing 
our course and pulling up-stream to our des- 
tination, Rock Island, which is six miles 



The Last Day Out, 1 39 

north of the delta of the Rock. They strongly 
advised our going into Rock Island by rail. 
The present landing was the last chance to 
strike a railway, except at Milan, twelve miles 
below. It was now so late that we could not 
hope to reach Milan before dark ; there were 
no stopping-places en route, and Milan was 
farther from Rock Island than either Carbon 
Cliff or Coloma, with less frequent railway 
service. 

For these and other reasons, we decided to 
accept this advice, and to ship from Coloma. 
Taking a final spurt down to a ferry-landing 
a quarter of a mile beyond, on the south 
bank, we beached our canoe at 5.05 p. m., 
having voyaged two hundred and sixty-seven 
miles in somewhat less than seven days and 

a half. Leaving W to gossip with the 

ferryman's wife, who came down to the bank 
with an armful of smiling twins, to view a 
craft so strange to her vision, I went up into 
the country to engage a team to take our 
boat upon its last portage. After having 
been gruffly refused by a churlish farmer, 
who doubtless recognized no difference be- 
tween a canoeist and a tramp, I struck a bar- 
gain with a negro cultivating a cornfield with 
a span of coal-black mules, and in half an 
hour he was at the ferry-landing with a 



140 Historic Waterways, 

wagon. Washing out the canoe and chain- 
ing in the oars and paddle, we lifted it into 
the wagon-box, piled our baggage on top, and 
set off over the hills and fields to Coloma, 

W and I trudging behind the dray, ankle 

deep in mud, for the late rains had well moist- 
ened the black prairie soil. It was a unique 
and picturesque procession. 

In less than an hour we were in Rock Isl- 
and, and our canoe was on its way by freight 
to Portage, preparatory to my tour with our 
friend the Doctor, — down the Fox River of 
Green Bay. 



THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN 
BAY). 




O 1 



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55 
z 

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o 

CO 






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x^°" 



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311331^^^^^^ ^',< 



THE FOX RIVER (OF GREEN BAY). 



FIRST LETTER. 



SMITH S ISLAND. 



M 



Y DEAR VV- 



Packwaukee, Wis., June 7, 1887. 
: It was 2.25 p. M. yes- 



terday when the Doctor and I launched 
the old canoe upon the tan-colored water of 
the government canal at Portage, and pointed 
her nose in the direction of the historic Fox. 
You will remember that the canal traverses 
the low sandy plain which separates the Fox 
from the Wisconsin on a line very nearly 
parallel to where tradition locates Earth's and 
Lecuyer's wagon-portage a hundred years 
ago. It was a profitable business in the 
olden days, when the Fox- Wisconsin highway 
was extensively patronized, to thus transport 
river craft over this mile and a half of bog. 



144 Historic Waterways. 

The tolP collected by these French Creoles 
and their successors down to the days of 
Paquette added materially to the cost of goods 
and peltries. In times of exceptionally high 
water the Wisconsin overflowed into the Fox, 
which is ordinarily five feet lower than the 
former, and canoes could readily cross the 
portage afloat, quite independent of the for- 
warding agents. In this generation the Wis- 
consin is kept to her bounds by levees ; but 
the government canal furnishes a free high- 
way. The railroads have spoiled water-navi- 
gation, however ; and the canal, like the most 
of the Fox and Wisconsin river-improvement, 
is fast relapsing into a costly relic. The tim- 
bered sides are rotting, the peat and sand are 
bulging them in, the locks are shaky and worm- 
eaten, and several moss-covered barges and a 
stranded old ruin of a steamboat turned out to 
grass tell a sad story of official abandonment. 
The scenic effects from the canal are not 
enlivening. There is a wide expanse of 
bog, relieved by some grass-grown railway 
side-tracks and the forlorn freight-depot of 
the Wisconsin Central road. A few bat- 
tered sheds yet remain of old Fort Winne- 
bago on a lonesome hillock near where the 

1 Ten dollars per boat, and fifty cents per loo lbs. of 
goods. 



SmitJis Island. 145 

canal joins the Fox ; while beyond to the 
north as far as the eye can reach there is a 
stretch of wild-rice swamp, through which the 
government dredges have scooped a narrow 
channel, about as picturesque as a cranberry- 
marsh drain. 

Life at Fort Winnebago during the second 
quarter of this century must have been lone- 
some indeed, its nearest neighbors being Forts 
Crawford and Howard, each nearly two hun- 
dred miles away. A mile or two to the south- 
west is a pretty wooded ridge, girting the 
Wisconsin River, upon which the city of Por- 
tage is now situated. Then it was a forest, 
and the camping-ground of Winnebagoes, who 
hung around the post in the half-threatening 
attitude of beggars who might make trouble 
if not adequately bribed with gifts. The fort 
was erected in 1828-29 at the solicitation of 
John Jacob Astor (the American Fur Com- 
pany), to protect his trade against encroach- 
ments from these Winnebago rascals, who had 
become quite impudent during the Red Bird 
disturbance at Prairie du Chien, in 1827. Jef- 
ferson Davis was one of the three first-lieu- 
tenants in the original garrison, in which 
Harney, of Mexican war fame, was a captain. 
Davis was detailed to the charge of a squad 
sent to cut timbers for the fort in a Wiscon- 
10 



146 Historic Waterways. 

sin River pinery just above the portage, and 
thus became one of the pioneer lumbermen of 
Wisconsin. It is related, too, that Davis, 
who was an amateur cabinet-maker, designed 
some very odd wardrobes and other pieces of 
furniture for the officers' chambers, which 
were the wonder and admiration of every 
occupant for years to come.^ In 1853, when 
Secretary of War, the whilom subaltern is- 
sued an order for the sale of the fort so 
intimately connected with his army career, 
and its crazy buildings henceforth became 
tenements. 

For a dozen miles beyond the Fox River 
end of the canal the river, as I have before 
said, is dredged out through the swamp like a 
big ditch. The artificial banks of sand and 
peat which line it are generally well grown 
with mare's-tail, beautiful clumps of wild 
roses, purple vetch, great beds of sensitive 
ferns, and masses of Pennsylvania anemone, 
while the pools are decked with water-anem- 
one. Nature is doing her best to hide the 
deformities wrought by man. The valley is 
generally about a mile in width, ridges of 
wooded knolls hemming in the broad expanse 
of reeds and rice and willow clumps. Occa- 

1 Described in Mrs. Kinzie's " Wau-Bun," which gives 
many interesting reminiscences of life at the old post. 



Smith's Island. 147 

sionally the engineers have allowed the ditch 
to swerve in graceful lines and to hug closely 
the firmer soil in the lower benches of the 
knolls, where the banks of red and yellow clay 
attain a height of ten or a dozen feet, crowned 
with oaks and elms or pleasant glades. A mod- 
est farm-house now and then appears upon 
such a shore, with the front yard running 
down to the water's edge. 

The afternoon shadows are lengthening, 
and farmers' boys are leading their horses 
down to drink, after the day's labor in the 
fields. Black and yellow collies are gathering 
in the cows, — some of them soberly and 
quickly corral obedient herds, while others 
yelp and snap at the heads of the affrighted 
animals, and in the noise and confusion seem 
to make but little progress. Collies have 
human-like infirmities. 

We had supper at seven o'clock, under a 
tree which overhangs a weedy bank, with 
a high pasture back of us, sloping up to a 
wooded hill, at the base of which is a cluster 
of three neatly painted farm-houses, whose 
dogs bayed at us from the distance, but did 
not venture to approach. A half-hour later, 
the sun's setting warned us that quarters for 
the night must soon be secured. Stopping 
at the base of a boggy pasture-wood, we as- 



148 Historic Waterways, 

cended through a sterile field, accursed with 
sheep-sorrel, and through gaps in several crazy 
fences, to what had seemed to us from the 
river a comfortable, repose-inviting house, 
commandingly situated on a hill-top among 
the trees. Near approach revealed a scene 
of desolation. The barriers were down, two 
spare-ribbed horses were nipping a scant sup- 
per among the weeds in a dark corner of an 
otherwise deserted barn-yard, the window- 
sashes were generally paneless, the porch was 
in a state of collapse, sand-burrs choked the 
paths, and to our knock at the kitchen door 
the only response was a hollow echo. The de- 
serted house looked uncanny in the gloaming, 
and we retired to our boat wondering what 
evil spell had been cast over the place, and 
whether the horses in the barn-yard had been 
deliberately left behind to die of starvation. 

The river now takes upon itself many devi- 
ous windings in a great widespread over two 
miles broad. The government engineers have 
here left it in all its original crookedness, and 
the twists and turns are as fantastic and com- 
plicated as those of the Teutonic pretzel in its 
native land. As the twilight thickened, great 
swarms of lake-flies rose from the sedges and 
beat their way up-stream, the noise of their 
multitudinous wings being at times like the 



SmitJi s Island, 149 

roar of a neighboring waterfall, as they formed 
a ceaselessly moving canopy over our heads. 
It was noticeable that the flies kept very 
closely to the windings of the river, as if 
guided only by the glittering flood beneath 
them. The mass of the procession kept its 
way up the stream, but upon the outskirts 
could be seen a few individuals, apparently 
larger than the average, flying back and forth 
as if marshaling the host. 

Two miles below the deserted house, we 
stopped opposite another marshy bank, where 
a rude skiff lay tied to a shaky fence project- 
ing far out into the reeds. Pushing our way 
in, we beached in the slimy shore-mud and 
scrambled upon the land, where the tall grass 
was now as sloppy with dew as though it had 
been rained upon. It was getting quite dark 
now, but through a cleft in the hills the moon 
was seen to be just rising above a cloud- 
bathed horizon, and a small house, neat-look- 
ing, though destitute of paint, was sharply 
silhouetted against the lightening sky, at the 
head of a gentle slope. By the time we had 
waded through a quarter of a mile of thriving 
timothy we were wet to the skin below the 
knees and dusted all over with pollen. 

Seven children, mostly boys, and gently step- 
laddered down from fourteen years, greeted 



150 Historic Waterways. 

us at the summit with a loud " Hello ! " in 
shrill unison. They stood in a huddle by 
the woodpile, holding down and admonishing 
a very mild-looking collie, which they evi- 
dently imagined was filled with an overween- 
ing desire instantly to devour us. " Hello 
there ! who be ye ? " shouted the oldest lad and 
the spokesman of the party. He was a tall, 
spare boy, and by the light of the rising- 
moon we could see he was sharp-featured, 
good-natured, and intelligent. 

" Well," said the Doctor, bantering, '' that 's 
what we 'd like to know. You tell us who 
you are, and we '11 tell you who we are. Now 
that 's fair, is n't it } " 

" Yes, sir," replied the boy, respectfully, as 
he touched his rimless straw hat; '' our 
name 's Smith ; all 'cept that boy there," 
pointing to a sturdy little twelve-year-old, 
"■ an' he 's a Bixby, he is." 

" The Smith family 's a big one, I should 
say," the Doctor remarked, as he audibly 
counted the party. 

" Oh, this ain't all on 'em, sir ; there 's two 
in the house, a-hidin' 'cause o' strangers, be- 
sides the baby, which ma and pa has with 
'em inter Packwaukee, a-shoppin'. This is 
Smith's Island, sir. Did n't ye ever hear o' 
Smith's Island } " 



SmitJzs Island, 151 

We acknowledged our ignorance, up to 
this time, of the existence of any such feature 
in the geography of Wisconsin. But the lad, 
now joined by the others, who had by this 
time vanquished their bashfulness and all 
wanted to talk at once, assured us that we 
were actually on Smith's Island ; that Smith's 
Island had an area of one hundred acres, was 
surrounded on the east by the river, and every- 
where else by either a bayou or a marsh that 
had to be crossed with a boat in the spring; 
that there were three families of Smiths there, 
and this group represented but one branch of 
the clan. 

'* We 're all Smiths, sir, but this boy, who's 
a Bixby ; an' he 's our cousin and only a- 
visitin'." 

After having gained a thorough knowledge 
of the topography and population of Smith's 
Island, we ventured to ask whether it was pre- 
sumable that the parental Smiths, when they 
returned home from the village, would be wil- 
ling to entertain us for the night. 

" Guess not, sir," replied the spokesman, 
the idea appearing to strike him humorously ; 
" there 's so many of us now, sir, that we 're 
packed in pretty close, an' the Bixby boy has 
to sleep atop o' the orgin. But I think Uncle 
Jim might ; he kept a tramp over night once, 



152 Historic Waterways. 

an' give him his breakfus', too, in the bar- 
gain." 

The prospect as to Uncle Jim was certainly- 
encouraging, and it was now too late to go 
further. It seemed necessary to stop on 
Smith's Island for the night, even if we were 
restricted to quartering in the corn-crib which 
the Smith boy kindly put at our disposal in 
case of Uncle Jim's refusal, — with the addi- 
tional inducement that he would lend us the 
collie for company and to " keep off rats," 
which he intimated were phenomenally nu- 
merous on this swamp-girt hill. 

The entire troop of urchins accompanied us 
down to the bank to make fast for the night, 
and helped us up with our baggage to the 
corn-crib, where we disturbed a large family 
of hens which were using the airy structure 
as a summer dormitory. Then, with the two 
oldest boys as pilots, we set off along the 
ridge to find the domicile of Uncle Jim, who 
had established a reputation for hospitality by 
having once entertained a way-worn tramp. 

The moon had now swung clear of the 
trees on the edge of the river basin, and 
gleamed through a great cleft in the blue- 
black clouds, investing the landscape with a 
luminous glow. Along the eastern horizon a 
dark forest-girt ridge hemmed in the reedy 



Smith! s Island. 153 

widespread, through which the gleaming Fox 
twisted and doubled upon itself like a silvery 
serpent in agony. The Indians, who have an 
eye to the picturesque in Nature, tell us that 
once a monster snake lay down for the night 
in the swamp between the portage and the lake 
of the Winnebagoes. The dew accumulated 
upon it as it lay, and when the morning came 
it wriggled and shook the water from its back, 
and disappeared down the river which it had 
thus created in its nocturnal bed. I had 
never fully appreciated the aptness of the 
legend until last night, when I had that 
bird's-eye view of the valley of the Fox 
from the summit of Smith's Island. To our 
left, the timothy-field sloped gracefully down 
to the sedgy couch of the serpent; to our 
right, there were pastures and oak openings, 
with glimpses of the moonlit bayou below, 
across which a dark line led to a forest, — the 
narrow roadway leading from Smith's to the 
outer world. At the edge of a small wood- 
lot our guides stopped, telling us to keep on 
along the path, over two stiles and through a 
barn-yard gate, till we saw a light ; the light 
would be Uncle Jim's. 

A cloud was by this time overcasting the 
moon, and a distant rumble told us that the 
night would be stormy. Groping our way 



154 Historic Waterways, 

through the copse, we passed the barriers, 
and, according to promise, the blinding hght 
of a kerosene lamp standing on the ledge 
of an open window burst upon us. Then a 
door opened, and the form of a tall, stalwart 
man stood upon the threshold, a striking 
silhouette. It was Uncle Jim peering into 
the darkness, for he had heard footsteps in 
the yard. We were greeted cordially on the 
porch, and shown into a cosey sitting-room, 
where Uncle Jim had been reading his weekly 
paper, and Uncle Jim's wife, smiling sweetly 
amid her curl-papers, was engaged on a bit of 
crochet. Charmingly hospitable people they 
are. They have been married but a year or 
two, are without children, and have a pleasant 
cottage furnished simply but in excellent taste. 
Such delightful little homes are rare in the 
country, and the Doctor could n't help telHng 
Uncle Jim so, whereat the latter was very 
properly pleased. Uncle Jim is a fine-look- 
ing, manly fellow, six feet two in his stock- 
ings, he told us ; and his pretty, blooming 
wife, though young, has the fine manners of 
the olden school. We were earnestly invited 
to stop for the night before we had fairly 
stated our case, and in five minutes were 
talking on politics, general news, and agri- 
culture, as though we had always lived on 



Smitlis Island, 155 

Smith's Island and had just dropped in for an 
evening's chat. I am sure you would have 

enjoyed it, W , it was such a contrast to 

our night at the Erie tavern, — only a week 
ago, though it seems a month. One sees 
and feels so much, canoeing, that the days 
are like weeks of ordinary travel. Two hun- 
dred miles by river are more full of the 
essence of life than two thousand by rail. 

We had an excellent bed and an appetizing 
breakfast. The flood-gates of heaven had 
been opened during the night, and Smith's 
Island shaken to its peaty foundations by 
great thunder-peals. Uncle Jim was happy, 
for the pasturage would be improved, and the 
corn crop would have a " show." Uncle 
Jim's wife said there would now be milk 
enough to make butter for market ; and the 
hens would do better, for somehow they never 
would lay regularly during the drought we 
had been experiencing. And so we talked 
on while the ** clearing showers" lasted. I 
told Uncle Jim that I was surprised to see 
him raising anything at all in what was ap- 
parently sand. He acknowledged that the 
soil was light, and inclined to blow away on 
the slightest aerial provocation, but he never- 
theless managed to get twenty bushels of 
wheat to the acre, and the lowlands gave him 



156 Historic Waterways, 

an abundance of hay and pasturage. He was 
decidedly in favor of mixed crops, himself, 
and was gradually getting into the stock line, 
as he wanted a crop that could " walk itself 
into market." The Doctor inquired about 
the health of the neighborhood, which he 
found to be excellent. He is much of a gal- 
lant, you know ; and Uncle Jim's wife was 
pleasantly flustered when, in his most win- 
ning tones, the disciple of -^sculapius de- 
clared that the climate that could produce 
such splendid complexions as hers — and 
Uncle Jim's — must indeed be rated as avail- 
able for a sanitarium. 

By a quarter to eight o'clock this morning 
the storm had ceased, and the eastern sky 
brightened. Our kind friends bade us a cheery 
farewell, we retraced our steps to the corn- 
crib, the Smith boys helped us down with 
our load, and just as our watches touched 
eight we shoved off into the stream, and were 
once more afloat upon the serpentine trail. 

These great wild-rice widespreads — 
sloughs, the natives call them — are doubt- 
less the beds of ancient lakes. In coursing 
through them, the bayous, the cul-de-sacs, are 
so frequent, and the stream switches off upon 
such unexpected tangents, that it is sometimes 
perplexing to ascertain which body of sluggish 



SmitJis Island, 1 5 7 

water is the main channel. Marquette found 
this out when he ascended the Fox in 1673. 
He says, in his relation of the voyage, " The 
way is so cut up by marshes and little lakes 
that it is easy to go astray, especially as the 
river is so covered with wild oats [wild rice] 
that you can hardly discover the channel ; 
hence, we had good need of our two guides." 

Little bog-islands, heavily grown with as- 
pens and willows, occasionally dot the seas of 
rice. They often fairly hum with the varied 
notes of the red-winged blackbird, the rusty 
grackle, and our American robin, while whis- 
tling plovers are seen upon the mud-spits, 
snapping up the choicest of the snails. And 
such bullfrogs ! I have not heard their like 
since, when a boy, living on the verge of a 
New England pond, I imagined their hollow 
rumble of a roundelay to bear the burden of 
'' Paddy, go 'round ! Go 'round and 'round ! " 
This in accordance with a local tradition 
which says that Paddy, coming home one 
night o'erfull of the '' craithur," came to the 
edge of the pond, which stopped his progress. 
The friendly frogs, who themselves enjoy a 
soaking, advised him to go around the ob- 
struction ; and as the wild refrain kept on, 
Paddy did indeed "go 'round, and 'round " till 
mornino; and his better-half found him, a foot- 



158 Historic Waterways. 

sore and a soberer man. They tell us that 
on the Fox River the frogs say, "Judge 
Arndt ! Arndt ! Judge Arndt! " Old Judge 
Arndt was one of the celebrities in the early 
day at Green Bay ; he was a fur-trader, and 
accustomed, with his gang of voyageurs, to 
navigate the Fox and Wisconsin with heavily 
laden canoes and Mackinaw boats. A French- 
man, he had a gastronomic affection for frogs' 
legs, and many a branch of the house of Rana 
was cast into mourning in the neighborhood 
of his nightly camps. The story goes, there- 
fore, that unto this time whenever a boat is 
seen upon the river, sentinel frogs give out 
the signal cry of " Judge Arndt!" by way of 
deadly warning to their kind. Certain it is 
that the valley of the upper Fox, by day or 
by night, is resonant with the bellow of the 
amphibious bull. It is not always ''Judge 
Arndt ! " but occasionally, as if miles and 
miles away, one hears a sudden twanging 
note, like that of the finger-snapped bass 
string of a violin ; whereas the customary 
refrain may be likened to the deep reverbera- 
tions of the bass-viol. Add the countless 
chatter and whistle of the birds, the ear- 
piercing hum of the cicada, and the muffled 
chimes from scores of sheep and cow bells 
on the hillside pastures, and we have an 



Smith's Island. 159 

orchestral accompaniment upon our voyage 
that could be fully appreciated only in a 
Chinese theatre. 

In the pockets and the sloughs, we find 
thousands of yellow and white water-lilies, 
and sometimes progress is impeded by masses 
of creeping root-stalks which have been torn 
from their muddy bed by the upheaval of the 
ice, and now float about in great rafts, firmly 
anchored by the few whose extremities are 
still imbedded in the ooze. 

Fishing-boats were also occasionally met 
with this morning, occupied by Packwaukee 
people ; for in the widespreads just above this 
village, the pickerel thrives mightily off the 
swarms of perch who love these reedy seas; 
and the weighty sturgeon often swallows a 
hook and gives his captor many a frenzied 
tug before he consents to enter the *' live-box" 
which floats behind each craft. 



SECOND LETTER. 

FROM PACKWAUKEE TO BERLIN. 

Berlin, Wis., June 8, 1887. 

MY DEAR W : Packwaukee is twenty- 
five miles by river below Portage, and 
at the head of Buffalo Lake. It is a tumble- 
down little place, with about one hundred 
inhabitants, half of whom appeared to be 
engaged in fishing. A branch of the Wis- 
consin Central Railway, running south from 
Stevens Point to Portage, passes through 
the town, with a spur track running along the 
north shore of the lake to Montello, seven 
miles east. Regular trains stop at Pack- 
waukee, while the engine draws a pony train 
out to Montello to pick up the custom of 
that thriving village. Packwaukee apparently 
had great pretensions once, with her battle- 
ment-fronts and verandaed inn ; but that day 
has long passed, and a picturesque float-bridge, 
mossy and decayed, remains the sole point of 



From Packwaukee to Berlin. 1 6 1 

artistic interest. A dozen boys were angling 
from its battered band-rail, as we painfully 
crept witb our craft through a small tunnel 
where the abutment had been washed out by 
the stream. We emerged covered with cob- 
webs and sawdust, to be met by boys eagerly 
soliciting us to purchase their fish. The 
Doctor, somewhat annoyed by their perti- 
nacity as he vigorously dusted himself with 
his handkerchief, declared, in the vernacular 
of the river, that we were " clean busted ; " and 
I have no doubt the lads believed his mild 
fib, for we looked just then as though we had 
seen hard times in our day. 

Our general course had hitherto been north- 
ward, but was now eastward for a few miles and 
afterward southeastward as far as Marquette. 
Buffalo Lake is seven miles long by from a 
third to three quarters of a mile broad. The 
banks are for the most part sandy, and from 
five to fifty feet high. The river here merely 
fills its bed ; being deeper, the wild rice and 
reeds do not grow upon its skirts. Were there 
a half-dozen more feet of water, the Fox 
would be a chain of lakes from Portage to 
Oshkosh. As it is, we have Buffalo, Puck- 
awa, and Grand Butte des Morts, which are 
among the prettiest of the inland seas of Wis- 
consin. The knolls about Buffalo Lake are 
II 



1 62 Historic Waterways. 

pleasant, round-topped elevations, for the most 
part wooded, and between them are little 
prairies, generally sandy, but occasionally 
covered with dark loam. 

The day had, by noon, developed into one 
of the hottest of the season. The run down 
Buffalo Lake was a torrid experience long to be 
remembered. The air was motionless, the 
sky without clouds ; we had good need of our 
awning. The Doctor, who is always experi- 
menting, picked up a flat stone on the beach, 
so warm as to burn his fingers, and tried to 
fry an ^gg upon it by simple solar heat, but 
the venture failed and a burning-glass was 
needed to complete the operation. 

Montello occupies a position at the foot of 
the lake, commanding the entire sheet of water. 
The knoll upon which the village is for the 
most part built is nearly one hundred feet 
high, and the simple spire of an old white 
church pitched upon the summit is a landmark 
readily discernible in Packwaukee, seven miles 
distant. There is a government lock at Mon- 
tello, and a small water-power. A levee pro- 
tects from overflow a portion of the town which 
is situated somewhat below the lake level. 
The government pays the lock-keepers thirty 
dollars per month for about eight months in 
the year, and house-rent the year round. 



From Packwaukee to Berlin. 163 

Tollage is no longer required, and the keep- 
ers are obliged by the regulations of the engi- 
neering department to open the gates for all 
comers, even a saw-log. But the services of 
the keepers are so seldom required in these 
days that we find they are not to be easily 
roused from their slumbers, and it is easier 
and quicker to make the portage at the aver- 
age up-river lock. Our carry at Montello was 
two and a half rods, over a sandy bank, where 
a solitary small boy, who had been catching 
crayfish with a dip-net, carefully examined 
our outfit and propounded the inquiry, '' Be 
you fellers on the guv'ment job?" 

Below the lock for three or four miles, the 
river is again a mere canal, but the rigid banks 
of dredge-trash are for the most part covered 
with a thrifty vegetation, and have assumed 
charms of their own. This stage passed, and 
the river resumes a natural appearance, — a 
placid stream, with now and then a slough, or 
perhaps banks of peat and sand, ten feet high 
and fairly well hung with trees and shrubs. 

As we approach the head of Lake Puckawa, 
the widespreads broaden, with rows of hills 
two or three miles back, on either side, — the 
river mowing a narrow swath through the 
expanse of reeds and flags and rice which 
unites their bases. Where the widespread 



164 Historic Waterways, 

becomes a pond, and the lake commences, 
there is a sandbar, the dregs of the upper 
channel. A government dredge-machine was 
at work, cutting out a water-way through the 
obstruction, — or, rather, had been at work, 
for it was seven o'clock by this time, the men 
had finished their supper, and were enjoying' 
themselves upon the neat deck of the board- 
ing-house barge, in a neighboring bayou, 
smoking their pipes and reading newspapers. 
It was a comfortable picture. 

A stern-wheel freight steamer, big and cum- 
bersome, came slowly into the mouth of the 
channel as we left it, bound up, for Montello. 
As we glided along her side, a safe distance 
from the great wheelbarrow paddle, she 
loomed above us, dark and awesome, like a 
whale overlooking a minnow. It was the '' T. 
S. Chittenden," wood-laden. The " Chitten- 
den " and the " Ellen Hardy " are the only boats 
navigating the upper Fox this season, above 
Berlin. Their trips are supposed to be semi- 
weekly, but as a matter of fact they dodge 
around, all the way from Winneconne to 
Montello, picking up what freight they can 
and making a through trip perhaps once a 
week. It is poor picking, I am told, and the 
profits but barely pay for maintaining the 
service. 



From Packwaiikee to Berli^i, 165 

There now being no place to land, without 
the great labor of poling the canoe through the 
dense reed swamp to the sides, we had sup- 
per on board, — the Doctor deftly spreading a 
bit of canvas on the bottom between us, for 
a cloth, and attractively displaying our lunch 
to the best advantage. I leisurely paddled 
meanwhile, occasionally resting to take a 
mouthful or to sip of the lemonade, in the 
preparation of which the Doctor is such an 
adept. And thus we drifted down Lake Puck- 
awa, amid the delightful sunset glow and the 
long twilight which followed, — the Doctor, 
cake in one hand and a glass of lemonade in 
the other, becoming quite animated in a de- 
tailed description of a patient he had seen in 
a Vienna hospital, whose food was introduced 
through a slit in his throat. The Doctor is 
an enthusiast in his profession, and would stop 
to advise St. Peter, at the gate, to try his 
method for treating locksmith-palsy. 

We noticed a great number of black terns 
as we progressed, perched upon snags at the 
head of the lake. They are fearless birds, 
and would allow us to drift within paddle's 
length before they would rise and, slowly 
wheeling around our heads, settle again upon 
their roosts, as soon as we had passed on. 

Lake Puckawa is eight miles long by per- 



1 66 Historic Waterways. 

haps two miles wide, running west and east. 
Five miles down the eastern shore, the quaint 
little village of Marquette is situated on a 
pleasant slope which overlooks the lake from 
end to end. Marquette is on the site of an 
Indian fur-trading camp, this lake being for 
many years a favorite resort of the Winne- 
bagoes. There are about three hundred in- 
habitants there, and it is something of a 
mystery as to how they all scratch a living ; 
for the town is dying, if not already dead, — 
about the only bit of life noticeable there 
being a rather pretty club-house owned by a 
party of Chicago gentlemen, who come to 
Lake Puckawa twice a year to shoot ducks, 
it being one of the best sporting- grounds in 
the State. That is to say, they have hereto- 
fore come twice a year, but the villagers were 
bewailing the passage by the legislature, last 
winter, of a bill prohibiting spring shooting, 
thus cutting off the business of Marquette by 
one half. Marquette, like so many other 
dead river-towns, appears to have been at one 
time a community of some importance. 
There are two deserted saw-mills and two or 
three abandoned warehouses, all boarded up 
and falling into decay, while nearly every 
store-building in the place has shutters nailed 
over the windows, and a once substantial side- 



From Packwaukee to Berlin. 167 

walk has become such a rotten snare that the 
natives use the grass-grown street for a foot- 
path. The good people are so tenacious of 
the rights of visiting sportsmen that there is 
no angling, I was told, except by visitors, and 
we inquired in vain for fish at the dilapidated 
little hotel where we slept and breakfasted. 
At the hostlery we were welcomed with 
open arms, and the landlady's boy, who offi- 
ciated as clerk, porter, and chambermaid, 
assured us that the village schoolmaster had 
been the only guest for six weeks past. 

It is certainly a quiet spot. The Doctor, 
who knows all about these things, diagnosed 
the lake and declared it to be a fine field for 
fly-fishing. He had waxed so enthusiastic 
over the numbers of nesting ducks which we 
disturbed as we came down through the reeds, 
in the early evening, that I had all I could do 
to keep him from breaking the new game law, 
although he stoutly declared that revolvers 
did n't count. The postmaster — a pleasant 
old gentleman in spectacles, who also keeps 
the drug store, deals in ammunition, groceries, 
and shoes, and is an agent for agricultural 
machinery — got very friendly with the Doc- 
tor, and confided to him the fact that if the 
latter would come next fall to Markesan, ten 
miles distant, over the sands, and telephone 



1 68 Historic Waterways, 

up that he was there, a team would be sent 
down for him ; then, with the postmaster for 
a guide, fish and fowl would soon be obliged 
to seek cover. It is needless to add that 
the Doctor struck a bargain with the post- 
master and promised to be on hand without 
fail. I never saw our good friend so wild 
with delight, and the postmaster became as 
happy as if he had just concluded a cash 
contract for a car-load of ammunition. 

The schoolmaster, a very accommodating 
young man, helped us down to the beach this 
morning with our load. Anticipating numer- 
ous lakes and widespreads, where we might 
gain advantage of the wind, we had brought 
a sprit sail along, together with a temporary 
keel. The sail helped us frequently yester- 
day, especially in Buffalo Lake, but the wind 
had died down after we passed Montello. This 
morning, however, there was a good breeze 
again, but quartering, and the keel became 
essential. This we now attached to our craft, 
and it was nearly seven o'clock before we were 
off, although we had had breakfast at 5.30. 

The " Ellen Hardy " was at the dock, load- 
ing with wheat for Princeton. She is a 
trimmer, faster craft than the " Chittenden." 
The engineer told us that the present stage 
of water was but two and a half feet in the 



From Packwaukee to Berlin. 169 

upper Fox, this year and last being the driest 
on record. He informed us that the freight 
business was ''having the spots knocked off it " 
by the railroads, and there was hardly enough 
to make it worth while getting up steam. 

Three miles down is the mouth of the lake. 
There being two outlets around a large marsh, 
we were somewhat confused in trying to find 
the proper channel. We ascertained, after 
going a mile and a half out of our way to 
the south, that the northern extremity of the 
marsh is the one to steer for. The river con- 
tinues to wind along between marshy shores, 
although occasionally hugging a high bank of 
red clay or skirting a knoll of shifting sand ; 
now and then these knolls rise to the dignity 
of hills, red with sorrel and sparsely covered 
with scrubby pines and oaks. 

It was noon when we reached the lock 
above Princeton. The lock-keeper, a remark- 
ably round-shouldered German, is a pleasant, 
gossipy fellow, fond of his long pipe and his 
very fat frau. Upon invitation, we made our- 
selves quite at home in the lock-house, a pleas- 
ant little brick structure in a plot of made 
land, the entire establishment having that 
rather stiffly neat, ship-shape appearance pe- 
culiar to life-saving stations, navy-yards, and 
military barracks. The good frau steeped for 



170 Historic Waterways. 

us a pot of tea, and in other ways helped us 
to grace our dinner, which we spread on a 
bench under a grape arbor, by the side of the 
yawning stone basin of the lock. 

The "Ellen Hardy," which had left Marquette 
nearly an hour later than we, came along 
while we were at dinner, waking the echoes 
with three prolonged steam groans. We took 
advantage of the circumstance to lock through 
in her company. This was our first experi- 
ence of the sort, so we were naturally rather 
timid as we brushed her great paddle, going 
in, and stole along under her overhanging 
deck, for she quite filled the lock. The cap- 
tain kindly allowed the liliputian to glide 
through in advance of his steamer, however, 
when the gates were once more opened, and 
we felt, as we shot out, as though we had 
emerged from under the belly of a monster. 

Beaching again, below the lock, we returned 
to finish our dinner. The keeper asked for a 
ride to Princeton village, three miles below, 
and we admitted him to our circle, — pipe, 
market-basket and all, though it caused the 
canoe to sink uncomfortably near to the gun- 
wale. Going down, our voluble friend talked 
very freely about his affairs. He said that 
his pay of ^30 per month ran from about the 
middle of April to the first of December, and 



From Packwaukee to Berlin, 1 7 1 

averaged him, the year round, about $20 and 
house-rent. He had but little to do, and got 
along very comfortably on the twenty-five 
acres of marsh-land which the government 
owned, by raising pigs and cows, a few vege- 
tables, and hay enough for his stock. He ad- 
mitted that this was "a heap better" than he 
could do in the fatherland. 

" I shoost dell you, mine frient," he said to 
me, as he grinned and refilled his pipe, "dot 
Shermany vos a nice guntry, and Bismarck 
he vos a grade feller, und I vos brout I vos a 
Sherman ; but I dells mine vooman vot I dells 
you, — I mooch rahder read aboud 'em in mine 
Sherman newsbaper, dan vot I voot leef dere 
myself, already. I roon avay vrom dem con- 
scrip' fellers, und I shoost never seed de time 
vot I voot go back again. In dot ol' guntry, 
I vos nuttings boot a beasant feller; unt in 
dis guntry I vos a goov'ment off'cer, vich 
makes grade diff'rence, already." 

He chuckled a good deal to himself when 
asked what he thought about the Fox-Wis- 
consin river-improvement, but finally said that 
government must spend its surplus some way, 
— if not in this, it would in another, — and 
he could not object to a scheme which gave 
him his bread and butter. He said that the 
improvement operations scattered a good deal 



172 Historic Waterways. 

of money throughout the valley, for labor and 
supplies, but expressed his doubts as to the 
ultimate national value of the work, unless the 
shifting Wisconsin River, thus far unnavigable 
for steamers, should be canalled from the por- 
tage to its mouth. He is an honest fellow, 
and appears to utilize his abundance of leisure 
in reading the newspapers. 

At Princeton village, — a thriving country 
town on a steep bank, with unkempt back- 
yards running down to and defiling the river, 
— we again came across the " Ellen Hardy." 
She was unloading her light cargo of wheat 
as we arrived, and left Princeton an eighth of 
a mile behind us. We now had a pleasant 
little race to White River lock, seven miles be- 
low. With sail set, and paddles to help, we 
led her easily as far as the lock. But we 
thought to gain time by portaging over the 
dam, and she gained a lead of at least a mile, 
although we frequently caught sight of her 
towering white hull across the widespreads, 
by dint of standing on the thwarts and peering 
over the tall walls of wild rice which shut us 
in as closely as though we had been canoeing 
in a railroad cut. 

It had been fair and cloudy by turns to-day, 
but delightfully cool, — a wonderful improve- 
ment on yesterday, when we fairly sweltered, 



From Packwaukee to Berlin. 173 

coming down Buffalo Lake. In the middle of 
the afternoon, below White River, a thunder- 
storm overtook us in a widespread several 
miles in extent. Seeking a willow island 
which abutted on the channel, we made a tent 
of the sail and stood the brief storm quite 
comfortably. We then pushed on, and, 
rubber-coated, weathered the few clearing 
showers in the boat, for we were anxious to 
reach Berlin by evening. 

At Berlin lock, twelve miles below White 
River, we portaged the dam, and, getting into 
a two-mile current, ate our supper on board. 
The river now begins to have firmer banks, 
and to approach the ridges upon the southern 
rim of its basin. 

We reached Berlin in the twilight, the land- 
scape of hill and meadow being softened in 
the golden glow. The better portion of this 
beautiful little city of forty-five hundred in- 
habitants is situated on a ridge, closely skirted 
by the river, with the poorer quarters on the 
flats spreading away on either side. There 
are many charming homes and the main 
business street has an air of active prosperity. 

We went into dock alongside of the '' Ellen 
Hardy." 




THIRD LETTER. 



THE MASCOUTINS. 



OsHKOSH, Wis., June 9, 1887. 

MY DEAR W : As we passed out of 
Berlin this morning, a government 
dredger was at work by the river-side. We 
paused on our paddles for some time, to watch 
the workings of the ingenious mechanism. 
There was something demoniac in the action 
of the monster, as it craned its jointed neck 
amid a quick chorus of jerky puffs from the 
engine and an accompaniment of rattling 
chains. Reaching far out over the bubbling 
water, it would open its great iron jaws with 
a savage clank and, pausing a moment to 
gather its energies, dive swiftly into the roily 
depth ; after swaying to and fro as if strug- 
gling with its prey, it soon reappeared, bearing 
in its filthy maw a ton or two of blue-black 
ooze, the water escaping through its teeth in 



The Mas cou tins. 175 

a score of hissing torrents ; then, turning aside 
to the heap of dredge-trash, suddenly vomited 
forth the foul-smelling mess, and returned for 
another charge. It was a singularly fascinat- 
ing sight, though wofully uncanny. 

From Berlin down to Omro, pleasant prairie 
slopes come down at intervals to the water's 
edge, on the south bank ; the feature of the 
north side being wide expanses of bog, the 
home of the cranberry, for which this region 
is famous. The best marshes, however, are 
the pockets, back among the ridges ; from 
these, great drainage-ditches, with flooding 
gates, come furrowing through the peat, in 
dark lines as straight as an arrow, and empty 
into the river. It was somewhere about here, 
nearer Berlin than Omro, — but exactly where, 
no man now knoweth, — that the ancient 
Indian " nation " of the Mascoutins was lo- 
cated over two centuries ago ; their neighbors, 
if not their village comrades, being the Miamis 
and the Kickapoos. Champlain, the intrepid 
founder of Quebec, had heard of their warring 
disposition as early as 161 5. In 1634 Jean 
Nicolet, the first white man known to have set 
foot upon territory now included in the State of 
Wisconsin, came in a bark canoe as far up the 
Fox River as the Mascoutins, and after stop- 
ping a time with them, journeyed southward 



176 Historic Waterways, 

to the country of the lUinois.^ Allouez and 
his companions also came hither in 1670, and 
the good father, in the official report of his ad- 
venturous canoeing trip, says the fort of these 
people was located a French league (2.4 Eng- 
lish miles) " over beautiful prairies " to the 
south of the river. Joliet and Marquette, on 
their way to discover the Mississippi River, 
arrived at the fort of the Mascoutins on June 7, 
1673, and the latter gives this graceful sketch 
of the oak openings hereabouts, which have 
not meanwhile perceptibly changed their char- 
acteristics : " I felt no little pleasure in be- 
holding the position of this town ; the view 
is beautiful and very picturesque, for from the 
eminence on which it is perched, the eye dis- 
covers on every side prairies spreading away 
beyond its reach, interspersed with thickets 
or groves of lofty trees." 

The Mascoutins are now a lost tribe. As 
the result of warring habits, they in turn were 
crowded to the wall, and a generation after 
Marquette's visit the banks of their river knew 
them no more ; the Foxes, from whom the 
stream ultimately took its name, were then 
predominant, and long continued the masters 
of the highway. 

1 Butterfield's "Discovery of the Northwest" (Cincin- 
nati, 1861). 



The MascoMtins, 177 

Sacramento — '' as dead as a door-nail, 
sir " — lies sprawled out over a pleasant 
riverside slope to the south. There is the 
customary air of fallen grandeur at Sacra- 
mento, — big hopes gone to decay ; battle- 
ment-fronts, houseless cellars, a universal 
lack of paint. The railroads, the real high- 
ways of our present civilization, have killed 
these little river towns that are away from 
the track, and they will never be resurrected. 
The day of inland water navigation, except 
for canoeists, is nearing its close. Settle- 
ment clings to the neighborhood of the rails, 
and generally avoids rivers as an obstruction 
to free transit. The towns that have to be 
reached by a country ferry are rotting, — they 
are off the line of progress. Sacramento 
boasts a spouting well by the river-bank, a 
mammoth village ash-leach, and fond memo- 
ries of the day when it was *' a bigger town 
than Berlin." As we stood in the spray of 
the fountain, filling our canteen with the 
purest and coldest of water, I speculated upon 
the strong probability of Sacramento being on 
the identical bank where the Jesuits beached 
their canoes to walk across country to the 
old Indian village. And the Doctor, apt to 
be irreverent as to aboriginal lore, suggested 
that the defunct Sacramento should have 
12 



178 Historic Waterways, 

written over its gate this motto : '* Gone to 
join the Mascoutins ! " 

Eureka, a few miles farther down, is also 
paintless, and her river-front is artistic with 
the crumbling ruins of two or three long- 
deserted saw-mills. A new Eureka appears, 
however, to be slowly building up, to one 
side of the dead little hamlet, — for there are 
smart steam flouring-mill and a model little 
cheese-factory in full swing here. The cheese 
man, an accommodating young fellow who ap- 
peared quite up to the times, and is a direct 
shipper to the London market, took a just 
pride in showing us over his establishment, 
and stocked our mess-box with samples of his 
best brands. 

Omro spreads over a sandy plain, upon 
both sides of the river, — an excellent wagon- 
bridge crossing the stream near that of the 
Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway. 
Omro, which is the headquarters of the 
Wisconsin Spiritualists, who have quite a 
settlement hereabouts, is growing somewhat, 
after a long period of stagnation, having at 
present a population of fifteen hundred. 

The " Ellen Hardy," which had now caught 
up with us, after chasing the canoe from 
Berlin down, went through the draw in our 
company. As the crew rolled off a small 



The Mascouttns, 179 

consignment of freight, the captain — a raw- 
boned, red-faced, and thoroughly good-humored 
man — leaned out of the pilot-house window 
and pleasantly chaffed us about our lowly 
conveyance. The conversation ended by his 
offering to give us a *' lift " through the great 
Winneconne widespread, to the point where 
the Wolf joins the Fox, nine or ten miles 
below. The " Ellen " was bound for Winne- 
conne and other points up the Wolf, so could 
help us no farther. Of course we accepted 
the kindly offer, and fastening our painter to a 
belaying-pin on the " Ellen's " port, scrambled 
up to the freight-deck just as the pilot-bell 
rang '* Forward ! " in the smoky little engine- 
room far aft. 

While I went aloft to enjoy the bird's-eye 
view obtainable from the pilot-house, the 
Doctor discussed fishing with the engineer, 
whom he found on closer acquaintance to be 
a rare, though much-begrimed philosopher. 
This engineer is a wizened-up little man, 
with a face like a prematurely dried apple, 
but his eyes gleam with a kindly light, and 
he is an inveterate angler. We had noticed 
him at every stopping stage, — his head, 
shoulders, and arms reaching out of the ab- 
breviated rear window of his caboose, — dang- 
ling a line astern. The Doctor learned that 



i8o Historic Waterways, 

this was his invariable habit. He kept 
the cook's galley in fish, and utilized each 
leisure half-hour in the pursuit of his favorite 
amusement. The engineer, good man, had 
fished, he said, in nearly every known sea, 
and the Doctor declared that he " could many 
a wondrous fish-tale unfold." In fact, the 
Doctor declared him to be the most interest- 
ing character he had ever met with, outside 
of a hospital, and said he should surely report 
to his favorite medical journal this remarkable 
case of abnormal persistency in an art, amid 
the most discouraging physical surroundings. 
He thought the man's brain should be dis- 
sected, in the cause of science. 

The Wolf, which has its rise 150 miles 
nor'-nor'west of Green Bay, in a Forest-county 
lakelet, and takes generous, south-trending 
curves away down to Lake Poygan, is prop- 
erly the noble stream which pours into Lake 
Winnebago from the northwest, and then, 
with a mighty rush, forces its way northeast- 
ward to the Great Lakes, along the base of 
the watershed which parallels the western 
coast of Lake Michigan and terminates in the 
sands of the Sturgeon-Bay country. The 
Jesuit fathers, in seeking the Mississippi, 
traced this river above Lake Winnebago, and 
on reaching the great widespread at the head 



The Mascoutins, 1 8 1 

of the Grand Butte des Morts, where the 
tributary flowing from the southwest empties 
its lazy flood into the rushing Fox, pursued 
that tributary to the portage and erroneously 
called their highway by one name, from Green 
Bay to the carry. Thus the long-unexplored 
main river, above the junction, came to be 
treated on the maps as a tributary, and to be 
dubbed the Wolf. This geographical mis- 
take has been so long persisted in that cor- 
rection becomes impracticable, and we must 
continue to style the branch the trunk. 

This has been a delightful day ; the heav- 
ens were clear and blue, and a gentle north- 
easter fanned our faces in the pilot-house, 
from which vantage-point, nearly thirty feet 
above the river-level, there was obtainable a 
bird's-eye view well worthy of canvas. The 
wild-rice bog, through which the Fox, here 
not over thirty yards wide, twists like the 
snapper of a whip, is from ten to fifteen miles 
wide, — a sea of living green, across which 
the breeze sends a regular succession of 
waves, losing themselves upon the far-distant 
shores. Upon the northwestern horizon, the 
Wolf comes stealing down at the base of a 
range of wooded hills. To the west, a flash- 
ing line tells where Lake Poygan " holds her 
mirror to the sun." The tall smoke-stacks of 



1 82 Historic Waterways, 

the Winneconne saw-mills occupy the mid- 
dle ground westward. To the east, in the 
centre of the picture, one catches glimpses of 
the consolidated stream, as its goodly flood 
quickly glides southeasterly, on a short spurt 
toward the Grand Butte des Morts, at the 
head of which is the old fur-trading village 
of the same name. Far southeastward, be- 
low the lake, there is just discernible the 
great brick chimney of a mammoth planing- 
mill, — an Algoma landmark, — and just be- 
hind that the black cloud resting above the 
Oshkosh factories. It is a broad, bounteous 
sweep of level landscape, — monotonous, of 
course, but imposing from mere immensity. 

At the union of the rivers we bade farewell 
to our friend the captain ; and the Doctor 
secured a promise from the engineer to send 
in his photograph to the hospital with which 
the former is connected. The " Ellen Hardy " 
stopped her engine as we cast off. In an- 
other minute, the great stern-wheel began to 
splash again, and we were bobbing up and 
down on the bubbly swell, waving farewell 
to our fellow-travelers and turning our prow 
to the southeast, while the roving " Ellen " 
shaped her course to Winneconne, where a 
lot of laths, destined for Princeton, awaited 
her arrival. 



The Mascoutins. 183 

The low ridge which forms the eastern 
bank of the Wolf, down to the junction, soon 
slopes off to the northeast, in the direction 
of Appleton, leaving a broad, level plain, of 
great fertility, between it and Lakes Grand 
Butte des Morts and Winnebago. On this 
plain are built the cities of Oshkosh, Neenah, 
and Menasha. Across it, the northeaster, 
freshening to a lively breeze, had full sweep, 
and stirred up the Grand Butte des Morts 
into a wild display of opposition to our prog- 
ress. Serried ranks of white-caps came 
sweeping across the lake, beating on our port 
bow, and the little sail, almost bursting with 
fulness, careened the canoe to the gunwale, 
as it swept gayly along through the foam. 
The paddles were necessary to keep her well 
abreast of the tide, and there was exercise 
enough in the operation to prevent drowsi- 
ness. The spray flew like a drizzling summer 
shower, but our baggage and stores were well 
covered down, and the weather was too warm 
for a body dampener to be uncomfortable. 

We passed the dark, gloomy, tumbled- 
down, but picturesque village of Butte des 
Morts, just before entering the lake. Of the 
twenty-five or so houses in the place, all but 
two or three are guiltless of paint. There is 
a quaintness about the simple architecture. 



184 Historic Waterways, 

which gives Butte des Morts a distinctive ap- 
pearance. To the initiated, it betokens the 
remains of an old fur-trading post ; and this 
was the genesis of Butte des Morts. It was 
in 1 81 8 that Augustin Grignon and James 
Porlier, men intimately connected with the 
history of the French-Indian fur-trade in 
Wisconsin, set up their shanty dwellings and 
warehouses on a little lakeside knoll a mile be- 
low the present village, which was founded by 
their voyagetcrs on the site of an old Menom- 
onee town and cemetery. Some of these 
post-buildings, together with the remains of 
the watch-tower, from which the traders ob- 
tained long advance notice of the approach 
of travelers, red or white, are still standing. 
As we sped by, I pointed out to the Doctor 
the location of these venerable relics, which 
I had, with proper enthusiasm, carefully in- 
spected fully a dozen summers before, and he 
suggested that the knowledge of the approach 
of a possible customer, by means of the tower, 
gave the traders an excellent opportunity to 
mark up the goods. 

James Porlier's son and successor, Louis 
B. Porlier, now an aged man, is the present 
occupant of the establishment, which is one 
of the oldest landmarks in Wisconsin ; and 
there, also, died the famous Augustin Grignon, 



The Mascoutins. 185 

historian of his clan. Butte des Morts, in 
the early day of the northwest, was some- 
thing- more than a trading-post. Situated 
near the union of the upper Fox and the 
Wolf, it was the rallying-point for both val- 
leys, — long before Appleton, Neenah, Men- 
asha or Oshkosh were known, or any of the 
towns on the upper Fox. It was the only 
white man's stopping-place between the port- 
age and Kaukauna. The mail trail between 
Green Bay and the portage crossed here, — 
for strange to say, the great south-stretching 
widespread, which lies like a map before the 
village, was in those days firm enough for a 
horse to traverse with safety ; while to-day a 
boat can be pushed anywhere between the 
rushes and rice, and it is par excellence the 
great breeding-ground of this section for 
muskrats and water-fowl. A scow-ferry was 
maintained in pioneer times for the benefit of 
the mail-carrier and other travelers. Butte 
des Morts is mentioned in most of the jour- 
nals left us by travelers over the Fox-Wis- 
consin watercourse, previous to 1835, and 
here several important Indian treaties were 
consummated by government commissioners. 
It is somewhat over fifteen miles from the 
mouth of the Wolf to Oshkosh. The run 
down the lake seemed unusually protracted. 



1 86 Historic Waterways. 

for the city was clearly in sight the entire 
way, and the distance, over the flat expanse, 
was deceptive. Algoma, now a portion of 
Oshkosh, was something of a settlement long 
before the lower town began to grow. But 
the latter finally overtook and swallowed the 
original hamlet. Algoma is now chiefly de- 
voted to the homes of the employees in the 
great planing and saw-milling establishments 
of Philetus Sawyer, Wisconsin's senior United 
States senator, and the wealthy Paine Brothers. 
The residences of these lumber kings are on 
a slope to the north of the iron wagon-bridge, 
under which we swept as the booming whis- 
tles of the busy locality, in unison with a noisy 
chorus of steam-gongs farther down the river, 
sounded the hour of six. Through the gant- 
let of the mills, with their outlying rafts, their 
lines of piling, and their great yards of newly 
sawn lumber, we sped quickly on. A half- 
hour later, we were turning up into a peaceful 
little dock alongside the south approach to 
the St. Paul railway-bridge, the canoe's quar- 
ters for the night. The sun was just plunging 
below the clear-cut prairie horizon, as we 
walked across the fields to the home of our 
expectant friends. 




FOURTH LETTER. 

THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES. 

Appleton, Wis., June lo, 1887. 

MY DEAR W : We had a late start 
to-day from Oshkosh. It was half- 
past nine o'clock by the time we had reloaded 
our traps, pushed off from the railway em- 
bankment, and received the God-speed of 

M , who had come down to see us off. 

The busy town, with its twenty-two thousand 
thrifty people, was all astir. The factories 
and the mills were resonant with the clans: 
and rattle of industry, and across the two 
wagon-bridges of the city proper there were 
continual streams of traffic. 

I suppose that Oshkosh is, in its way, as 
widely known throughout this country as al- 
most any city in it. The name is strikingly 
outlandish, being equaled only by Kalamazoo, 
and furnishes the butt of many a newspaper 
joke and comic rhyme. Old chief Oshkosh, 



1 88 Historic Waterways. 

whose cognomen signifies '* brave " in Me- 
nomonee speech, was the head man of his 
dusky tribe, a half-century ago. He was a 
doughty, wrinkled hero, o'er fond of fire-water, 
and wore a battered silk hat for a crown. 
About 1840, when the settlement here was 
four years old, the Government offered to 
establish a post-office if the inhabitants would 
unite on a name for the place. The whites 
favored Athens, but the Indians, half-breeds, 
and traders round about Butte des Morts, 
wanted their friend Oshkosh immortalized, so 
they came down to the new settlement in 
force, and the election being a free-for-all, 
carried the day. It is said that the Grignons 
were so anxious in behalf of the Menomonee 
sachem that they had a number of squaws 
array themselves in trousers and cast ballots 
like the bucks. And it was fortunate, as 
events proved, that the election turned out 
as it did, for the oddity of the name has 
been a permanent advertisement for a very 
bright community. Oshkosh, as hackneyed 
"Athens," would have been lost to fame. 
Nobody would think of going to "Athens" to 
"have fun with the boys." 

The morning air was as clear as a bell, — a 
pleasant northeast zephyr, coming in off the 
body of the lake, slightly ruffling the surface 



The Land of the Win n ebagoes. 1 8 9 

and reducing the temperature to a delightful 
tone. The wind not being fair, the sail was use- 
less, so we paddled along through the broad 
river, into the lake and northward past a fisher- 
men's colony, rows of great ice-houses, the 
water-works park, and beautiful lake-shore 
residences, to Garlic Island. It was half-past 
twelve, p. M., when we tied up at the crazy 
pier which projects from this islet of the 
loud-smelling vegetable. A half-century ago 
Garlic Island was the home of lowatuk, the 
beautiful aboriginal relict of a French fur- 
trader, — an Indian princess, the old settlers 
called her ; at all events, she is reputed to 
have been a most exemplary person, well- 
possessed of this world's goods, as well as a 
large family of half-breed children. The 
island is charmingly situated, a half-mile or 
more out from the main land, opposite the 
Northern Insane Hospital; it is a forest of 
ancient elms, surrounded by a bowlder-strewn 
beach of some three quarters of a mile in 
length, and occupied by a summer-hotel es- 
tablishment. The name " Garlic Island " does 
not sound very well for a fashionable resort, 
so the insular territory has been dubbed 
" Island Park " of late ; but "Garlic" has good 
staying qualities, and I doubt if they can ever 
efface the objectionable pioneer title. 



IQO Historic Waterways, 

We had our dinner on the sward near the 
pier, convenient to a pump, and were enter- 
tained by watching the approach of a Httle 
steam-launch, loaded with a party of " resort- 
ers" who had doubtless been shopping in 
Oshkosh, the smoke from whose chimneys 
rose above the tree-tops, five miles to the 
southwest. There were some of the usual 
types, — the languid Southern woman, with 
her two pouting boys in charge of a rather 
savage-looking colored nurse, who dragged 
the little fellows out over the gang-plank, one 
in each hand, as though they had been bags 
of flour ; a fashionable dame, from some 
northern metropolis, all ribbons and furbe- 
lows, starch and whalebones, accompanied by 
her willowy daughter of twenty, almost her 
counterpart as to dress, with a pert young 
miss of fourteen, in abbreviated gown and 
overgrown hat, bringing up the rear with the 
family pug ; a dawdling young Anglo-maniac 
sucked the handle of his cane and looked 
sweetly on the society girl, whose papa, ap- 
parently a tired-out broker, in a well made 
business costume and a wretched straw hat, 
stayed behind to treat the skipper to a prime 
cigar and arrange for a fishing excursion. 

There is a fine view from the island. The 
hills and cliffs of Calumet County, a dozen 



The Land of the Wmnedagoes. 191 

miles to the east, are dimly visible. Toward 
Fond du Lac, on the south, the horizon is the 
lake. South-southwestward, Black Wolf Point 
runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of 
the tall trees upon it peep up into view, like 
shadowy pile-work. Westward are the well- 
kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately 
elms overhanging the firm, gravelly beach, 
studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which ex- 
tends northward to Neenah. The view to 
the north and northeast is delightfully hazy, 
being now dark with delicate fringes of forest 
which cap the occasional limestone promon- 
tories, and again losing itself in a watery 
sky-line. 

We had two pleasant hours at this island- 
home of the lovely lowatuk, walking around 
it on the bowldered beach, and reveling in 
the shade of the grand old elms. By the time 
we were ready to resume our voyage, the 
wind had died down, the lake was as smooth 
as a marble slab, and the sun's rays reflected 
from it converted the atmosphere to the tem- 
perature of a bake-oven. No sooner had we 
pushed out beyond the deep shadows of the 
trees than it seemed as though we had at one 
paddle-stroke shot into the waters of a tropic 
sea. The awning was at once raised, and 
served to somewhat mitigate our sufferings, 



192 Historic Waterways, 

but the dazzling reflection was there still, to 
the great discomfort of our eyes. 

After two miles of distress, a bank of light 
but sharply broken clouds appeared on the 
northeastern horizon, and soon a gentle breeze 
brou2;ht blessed relief. In a few minutes 
more, ripples danced upon our starboard quar- 
ter, and then the awning had to come down, 
for it filled like a fixed sail and counteracted 
the effect of the paddles. The Doctor, who, 
you know full well, never paddles when he 
can sail, insisted on running up into the wind 
and spreading the canvas. He was just in 
time, for a squall struck us as he was adjust- 
ing the boom sprit, and nearly sent him over- 
board while attempting to regain his seat. 
Little black squalls now rapidly succeeded 
each other, the wind freshening between the 
gusts ; and the Doctor, who was the sailing- 
master, had to exercise rare vigilance, for the 
breeze was rapidly developing into a young 
gale, and the ripples had now grown to be by 
far the largest waves our little craft had yet 
encountered. The situation began to be 
somewhat serious, as the clouds thickened 
and the white-caps broke upon the west beach 
with a sullen roar. We therefore deemed it 
advisable to run into a little harbor to the lee 
of a wooded spit, and hold council. 



The Land of the Winnehagoes, 193 

It was a wild, storm-tossed headland, two 
thirds of the distance down from the island, 
and the spit was but one of its many points. 
We landed and made an extended exploration, 
deeming it possible that we might be obliged 
to pass the night here ; but the result of our 
discoveries was to discourage any such pro- 
ject. For a half-mile back or more the forest 
proved to be a tangled swamp, filled with 
fallen timber and sink-holes, while quick- 
sands lined the harbor where the canoe 
peacefully rested behind an outlying fringe of 
gnarled elms. We wandered up and down the 
gravelly beach, in the spray of the breakers, 
scrambling over great bowlders and overhang- 
ing trunks whose foundations had been sapped 
by storm-driven floods ; but everywhere was 
the same hard, forbidding scene of desolation, 
with the angry surface of the lake and the 
canopy of wind-clouds filling out a picture 
which, the Doctor suggested, could have only 
been satisfactorily executed in water-colors. 

In the course of our wanderings, which 
were sadly destructive to clothes and shoe- 
leather, we had some comical adventures. 
The Doctor hasn't got over laughing about 
one of them yet. We came to an apparently 
shallow lagoon, perhaps three rods wide and a 
dozen long, beyond which we desired to pene- 
13 



194 Historic Waterways, 

trate. It was bedded with sand and covered 
with green slime. The Doctor had, just be- 
fore, divested himself of shoes and stockings 
and rolled his trousers above his knees, in an 
enthusiastic hunt for a particularly ponderous 
frog, which he desired to pickle in the cause 
of science. He playfully offered to carry me 
across the pool on his back, and thus save me 
the trouble of imitating his style of undress. 
With some misgivings as to the result, I 
finally mounted. We progressed favorably 
as far as the centre, when suddenly I felt my 
transport sinking ; he gave a desperate lunge 
as the water suddenly reached his waist, I 
sprang forward over his head, and losing my 
balance, sprawled out flat upon the slimy 
water. I hardly know how we reached firm 
ground again, but when we did, we were a 
sorry-looking pair, as you can well imagine. 
The Doctor thought it high sport, as he 
wrung out his clothes and spread them upon a 
bowlder to dry, and I tried hard to join in his 
boisterous hilarity ; but somehow, as I scraped 
the gluey slime from my only canoeing suit, 
with a bit of old drift shingle, and contempla- 
ted the soppy condition of my wardrobe, I 
know there must have been a tinge of sad- 
ness in my gaze. It was too much like being 
shipwrecked on a desert island. 



The Land of the Winnebagoes. 195 

As we sat, clad in rubber coats, sunning 
ourselves on the lee side of a fallen tree and 
waiting for our garments to again become 
wearable, the Doctor read to me an article 
from his medical journal, describing a novel 
surgical operation on somebody's splintered 
backbone, copiously illustrating the selection 
with vivid reports of his own hospital obser- 
vations in that direction. This sort of thing 
was well calculated to send the shivers down 
one's spinal column, but the Doctor certainly 
made the theme quite interesting and the 
half-hour necessary to the drying process 
soon passed. 

By this time it was plain to be seen that 
the velocity of the wind was not going to 
increase before sundown, although it had not 
slacked. We determined to try the sea again, 
and pushed out through the breakers, with 
sail close-hauled and baggage canvased. 
Taking a bold offing into the teeth of the 
gale, we ran out well into the lower lake, and 
then, on a port tack, had a fine run down to 
Doty's Island, which divides the lower Fox 
into two channels. The city of Neenah, noted 
for its flouring and paper mills, is built upon 
both sides of the southern channel, or Neenah 
River; Menasha, with several factories, but 
apparently less prosperous than the other, 



196 Historic Waterways. 

guards the north channel, — the twin cities 
dividing the island between them. The gov- 
ernment lock is at Menasha, while at Neenah 
there is a fine water-power, with a fall of 
twelve or fifteen feet, — the "Winnebago 
Rapids " of olden time. 

It was into Neenah channel that we came 
flying so gayly, before the wind. There is a 
fine park on the mainland shore, with a smartly 
painted summer hotel and half a dozen pretty 
cottages that would do credit to a seaside re- 
sort. To the right the island is studded with 
picturesque old elms, shading a closely cropped 
turf, upon which cattle peacefully graze, while 
here and there among the trees are old-fash- 
ioned white cottages, with green blinds, quite 
after the style of a sleepy New-England vil- 
lage, — a charming scene of semi-rustic life; 
while to seaward Lake Winnebago tosses and 
rolls, almost to the horizon. 

Doty's is an historic landmark. The rapids 
here necessitated a portage, and from the 
earliest times there have been Indian villages 
on the island, more or less permanent in char- 
acter, — Menomonee, Fox, and Winnebago in 
turn. As white traffic over the Fox- Wiscon- 
sin watercourse grew, so grew the importance 
of this village, whatever the tribe of its in- 
habitants ; for the bucks found employment in 



The Land of the Winnebagoes. 197 

helping the empty boats over the rapids and 
in "toting" the goods over the portage-trail. 
The Foxes overreached themselves by setting 
up as toll-gatherers. It is related — but his- 
torians are somewhat misty as to the details 
— that in the winter of 1706-7 a French 
captain, Marin by name, was sent out by the 
governor of New France to chastise the black- 
mailers. At the head of a large party of 
French Creoles and half-breeds, he ascended 
the lower Fox on snowshoes, surprising the 
aborigines in their principal village, here at 
Winnebago Rapids, and slaughtering them by 
the hundreds. Afterward, this same Marin 
conducted a summer expedition against the 
Foxes. His boats were filled with armed 
men and covered down with oilcloth, as 
traders were wont to treat their goods en 
voyage, to escape a wetting. Only two men 
were visible in each boat, paddling and steer- 
ing. Nearly fifteen hundred dusky tax- 
gatherers were discovered squatting on the 
beach at the foot of the rapids, awaiting the 
arrival of the flotilla. The canoes were 
ranged along the shore. Upon a signal being 
given, the coverings were thrown off and 
volley after volley of hot lead poured into 
the mob of unsuspecting savages, a swivel- 
gun in Marin's boat aiding in the slaughter. 



198 Historic Waterways, 

Tradition has it that over a thousand Foxes 
fell in that brutal assault. In 1716 another 
captain of New France, named De Louvigny, 
is reported to have stormed the audacious 
Foxes. They had not, it seems, been exter- 
minated by previous massacres, for five hun- 
dred warriors and three thousand squaws are 
alleged to have been collected within a pali- 
saded fort, somewhere in the neighborhood 
of these rapids. De Louvigny is credited 
with having captured the fort after a three 
days' siege, but granted the enemy the honors 
of war. Twelve years later the Foxes had 
again become so troublesome as to need chas- 
tisement. This time the agent chosen to 
command the expedition was De Lignery, 
among whose lieutenants was the noted 
Charles de Langlade, Wisconsin's first white 
settler. But the redskins had become wise, 
after their fashion, and fled before the French- 
men, who found the villages on the Fox, 
lower and upper, deserted. The invaders 
burned every wigwam and cornfield in sight, 
from Green Bay to the portage. This expedi- 
tion appears to have been followed by others, 
until the Foxes, with the allied Sacs, fled the 
valley, never to return. Much of this is 
traditionary. 

The widening of the Fox below Doty's 



The Land of the Wimiehagoes. 199 

Island was called Lac Petit Butte des Morts, 
— '' Lake Little Hill of the Dead," to dis- 
tinguish it from the '' Great Hill of the Dead," 
above Oshkosh. 

It has long been claimed that the thousands 
of Foxes who at various times fell victims to 
these massacres in behalf of the French fur- 
trade were buried in great pits at Petit Butte 
des Morts, — near Winnebago Rapids. But 
modern investigators lean to the opinion that 
the " little hill of the dead " was merely an 
ordinary Indian cemetery, and the mound or 
mounds there are prehistoric tumuli, common 
enough in the neighborhood of Wisconsin 
lakes. A like conclusion, also, has been ar- 
rived at in regard to the Grand Butte des 
Morts. However, this is something that the 
archaeological committee must settle among 
themselves. 

The Winnebagoes succeeded the Foxes, 
and Doty's Island became the seat of their 
power. The master spirit among them for a 
quarter of a century previous to the fall of 
New France was a French fur-trader named 
De Korra or De Cora, who had a Winnebago 
" princess " for a squaw. They had a numer- 
ous progeny, which De Korra left to his wife's 
charge when called to serve under Montcalm 
in the defence of Quebec. He was killed in 



200 Historic Waterways, 

a sortie, and Madame De Korra and her 
brood relapsed into barbarism. One half of 
the Winnebagoes now living are descendants, 
more or less direct, of this sturdy old fur- 
trader, and bear his name, which is also per- 
petuated, with varied orthography, in many a 
northwestern stream and hamlet. During 
the first third of the present century Hoo- 
Tschope, or Four Legs, was the dusky mag- 
nate at this Winnebago capital.^ Four Legs 
was a cunning rascal, well known to the earli- 
est pioneers, but he at last fell a victim to his 
greatest enemy, the bottle. Last month I 
was visiting among the Winnebagoes around 
Black River Falls. Desiring to have a " talk " 
with Walking Cloud, a wizened-faced red- 
skin of some seventy-two years, I went out 
with my interpreters over the hills and 
through the valley of the Black, nearly a 
dozen miles, before I found him and his 
squatting in their wigwams at the base of 
a bold bluff, fronted by a lovely bit of vale. 
Cloud's decrepit squaw, blind in one eye 
and wofully garrulous, hobbled up to us, and 
sinking to her knees in front of me, held out 
a dirty, bony hand, with nails like the claws 
of a bird, murmuring, " Give ! Give ! " I 

1 See Mrs. Kinzie's " Wau-Bun " for reminiscences of 
Four Legs. 



The Land of the Winnebagoes. 201 

dropped a coin into the outstretched palm ; she 
grinned and chattered like an animated skele- 
ton, and crawled away on her witch-like 
crutch. This was the once far-famed and 
beautiful princess of the Winnebagoes, the 
winsome Champche Keriwinke, or Flash of 
Lightning, eldest daughter of Hoo-Tschope. 
How are the mighty fallen ! 

We portaged around the island end of the 
Neenah dam and met the customary shal- 
lows below the obstruction. But soon finding 
a narrow, rock-imbedded channel, we glided 
swiftly down the stream, through the thrifty 
town, past the mills and under the bridges, 
just as the six o' clock bells had sounded and 
the factory hands were thronging homeward, 
their tin dinner-pails glistening in the sun. 
Scores of them stopped to lean over the 
bridge-rails, and curiously watched us as we 
threaded the shallows ; for canoes long ago 
ceased to be a daily spectacle at Winnebago 
Rapids. 

Little Lake Butte des Morts, just below, 
is where the river spreads to a full mile in 
breadth, the average width of the stream being 
less than one half that. The wind was fair, 
and we came swooping down into the lake, 
which is two or three miles long. A half- 
hour before sunset we hauled up at a high 



202 Historic Waterways. 

mossy glade on the north shore, and had de- 
lightful down-stream glimpses of deep vine- 
clad, naturally terraced banks, the slopes and 
summits being generally well wooded. A party 
of young men and women were having a camp 
near us. The woods echoed with their laugh- 
ing shouts. A number, with their chaperone, 
a lovely and lively old lady, in a white cap 
with satin ribbons, came down to the shore 
to inspect our little vessel and question us as 
to our unusual voyage. We returned the call 
and played lawn tennis with fair partners, until 
the fact that we must reach Appleton to-night 
suddenly dawned upon us, and we bade a hasty 
farewell to our joyous wayside friends. 

It was a charming run down to Appleton, 
between the park-like banks, which rise to an 
altitude of fifty feet or more. Every now and 
then a pretty summer residence stands prom- 
inently out upon a blufif-head, an architectural 
gem in a setting of oaks and luxurious pines. 
At their bases flows the deep flood of the 
Lower Fox, black as Erebus in the shadows, 
but smiling brightly in the patchy sunlight, 
and thickly decked with great bubbles which 
fairly leap along the course, eager to reach 
their far-off ocean goal. But swifter by far 
than the bubbles went our canoe as we set 
the paddles deeply and bent to our work, for 



The Land of the Winnebagoes. 203 

the waters were strange to us, the night was 
setting in, and Appleton must be made. It 
will not do to traverse these rivers after dark 
unless well acquainted with the currents, the 
snags, and the dams, for disaster may readily 
overtake the unwary. 

Cautiously we now crept along, for in the 
fast-fading twilight we could just discern the 
outlines of the Appleton paper-mills and a 
labyrinth of railway bridges, while the air 
fairly trembled with the mingled roar of water 
and of mighty gearing. Across the rapid 
stream shot piercing rays from the windows 
of the electric works, whose dynamos furnish 
light for the town and power for the street 
railway. A fisherman, tugging against the 
current, shouted to us to keep hard on the 
eastern bank, and in a few minutes more we 
glided by the stone pier which buttresses the 
upper dam, and pulled up in a little dead-water 
cove at the base of the Milwaukee and North- 
ern railway bridge. The bridge-tender's 
children came down to meet us ; the man 
himself soon followed ; we were permitted to 
chain up for the night at his pier, and to de- 
posit our bulky baggage in his kitchen ; he 
accompanied us over the long bridge which 
spans the noisy apron and the rushing race. 
A misstep between the ties would send one 



204 Historic Waterways. 

on a short cut to the hereafter, but we safely 
crossed, ascended two or three steep flights 
of stairs to the top of the bank, and in a 
minute or two more were speeding up town 
to our hotel, aboard an electric street railway 
car. 




il^s^pc 



FIFTH LETTER. 



M 



LOCKED THROUGH. 

Little Kaukauna, Wis., June ii, 1887. 
Y DEAR W : We took an ex- 
tended stroll around Appleton after 
breakfast. It is a beautiful city, — the gem 
of the Lower Fox. The banks are nearly 
one hundred feet high above the river level. 
They are deeply cut with ravines. Hillside 
torrents, quickly formed by heavy rains, as 
quickly empty into the stream, draining the 
plateau of its superfluous surface water, and 
in the operation carving these great gulches 
through the soft clay. And so there are 
many steep inclines in the Appleton high- 
ways, and the ravines are frequently bridged 
by dizzy trestle-works ; but the greater part 
of the city is on a high, level plain, the wealthy 
dwellers courting the summits of the river 
banks, where the valley view is panoramic. 
The little Methodist college, with its high- 



2o6 Historic Waterways, 

sounding title of Lawrence University, is an 
excellent institution, and said to be growing; 
it gives a certain scholastic tinge to Appleton 
society, which might otherwise be given up to 
the worship of Mammon, for there is much 
wealth among the manufacturers who rule 
the city, and prosperity attends their reign. 

There is a good natural water-power here, 
but the Fox-Wisconsin improvement has 
made it one of the finest in the world. If 
the improvement scheme is a flat failure else- 
where, as is beginning to be generally be- 
lieved, it certainly has been the making of 
this valley of the Lower Fox. From Lake 
Winnebago down to the mouth, the rapids are 
frequent, the chief being at Neenah, Apple- 
ton, Kaukauna, Little Kaukauna, and Depere. 
Of the twenty-six locks from Portage down, 
seventeen are below our stopping-point of 
last night ; the fall at each, at this stage of 
water being about twelve feet on the average. 
Each of these locks involves a dam ; and 
when the stream is thus stemmed and all 
repairs maintained, at the expense of the gen- 
eral government, it is a simple matter to tap 
the reservoir, carry a race along the bank, and 
have water-power ad libitum. Not half the 
water-power in sight, not a tenth of that pos- 
sible is used. There is enough here, experts 



Locked Through. 207 

declare, to turn the machinery of the world. 
No wonder the beautiful valley of the Lower 
Fox is rich, and growing richer. 

It was no holiday excursion to portage 
around the Appleton locks this morning. At 
none of them could we find the tenders, for 
the Menasha lock being broken, there is no 
through navigation from Oshkosh to Green 
Bay this week, and way traffic is slight. We 
had neglected to furnish ourselves with a tin 
horn, and the vigorous use of lung power 
failed to achieve the desired result. The 
banks being steep and covered with rock 
chips left by the stone-cutters employed on 
the work, we had some awkward carries, and 
felt, as we finally passed the cordon and set 
out on the straight eastward stretch for Kau- 
kauna, that we were earning our daily bread. 

Kaukauna, the Grand Kackalin of the 
Jesuits and early French traders, is ten miles 
below Appleton. Here are the most formi- 
dable rapids on the river, the fall being sixty 
feet, down an irregular series of jagged lime- 
stone stairs some half mile in extent. Indians, 
in their light bark canoes and practically with- 
out baggage, can, in high water, make the 
passage, up or down, by closely hugging the 
deeper and stiller water on the north bank ; 
but the French traders invariably portaged 



2o8 Historic Waterways, 

their goods, allowing the voyageurs to carry 
over the empty boats, the men walking in the 
water by the side, pushing, hauling, and bal- 
ancing, amid a stream of oaths from their 
bourgeois, or master, who remained at his 
post. I had had an idea that in our little craft 
we might safely make the venture of a shoot 
down the stairs, by exercising caution and 
following the Indian channel. But this was 
previous to arrival. Leaving the Doctor to 
guard the canoe from a crowd of Kaukauna 
urchins, who were disposed to be over-familiar 
with our property, I went down through a 
boggy field to view the situation. It is a 
grand sight, looking up from the bottom of 
the rapids. The water is low, and at every 
few rods masses of rock project above the 
seething flood, specimens of what line the 
channel. The torrent comes down with a 
mighty roar, lashing itself into a fury of spray 
and foam as it leaps around and over the ob- 
structions, and takes great lunges from step to 
step. There are several curves in the basin 
of the cataract, which add to its artistic effect, 
while it is deeply fringed by stunted pines 
and scrub oaks, having but a slender footing 
in the shallow turf which covers the under- 
lying stratum of limestone. Whatever may 
be the condition of the falls at Kaukauna in 



Locked Through. 209 

high water, it is certain that at this stage a 
canoe would be dashed to spUnters quite early 
in the attempt to scale them. 

But a portage of half a mile was not to our 
taste in the torrid temperature we have been 
experiencing to-day, and we determined to 
maintain the rights of free navigators by 
obliging the tenders to put us through the 
five great locks, which are here necessary to 
lower vessels from the upper to the lower 
level. These tenders receive ample compen- 
sation, and many of them are notoriously 
lazy. It is but seldom that they are com- 
pelled to exercise their muscles on the gates ; 
for navigation on the Fox is spasmodic and 
unimportant. As I have said in one of my 
previous letters, even a saw-log has the right of 
way ; and government paid a goodly sum to 
the speculators from whom it purchased this 
improvement, that free tollage might be es- 
tablished here for all time. And so it was 
that, perhaps soured a little by our Appleton 
experience, we determined at last to test the 
matter and assert the privileges of American 
citizens on a national highway. 

On regaining my messmate, we took a 

general view of Kaukauna, — which spreads 

over the banks and a prairie bottom on both 

sides of the river, and is a growing, bustling, 

14 



2IO Historic Waterways, 

freshly built little factory town, — and then 
re-embarked to try our fortune at the lock- 
gates. Heretofore we had considerately por- 
taged every one of these obstructions, except 
at Princeton, where we went through under 
the " Ellen Hardy's " wing. 

A stalwart Irishman, in his shirt-sleeves, 
and smoking a clay pipe with that air of dog- 
ged indifference peculiar to so many govern- 
ment officials, leaned over a capstan at the 
upper lock, and dreamily stared at the ap- 
proaching canoe. The lock was full, the last 
boat having passed up a day or two before. 
The upper gates being open, we pushed in, 
and took up our station in the centre of the 
basin, to avoid the " suck " during the empty- 
ing process. The Doctor took out of the 
locker a copy of his medical journal and I a 
novel, and we settled down as though we had 
come to stay. The Irishman's face was at 
first a picture of dumb astonishment, and 
then he sullenly picked up his coat from the 
grass, and began to walk off in the direction 
of the town. 

" Hi, my friend ! " shouted the Doctor, good- 
naturedly. " We are waiting to get locked 
through." 

The tender returned a step, his eyes opened 
wide, his brows knit, and in his wrath he 



Locked Through, 2 1 1 

stuttered, " Ph-h-a-t ! Locked through in 
that theer s-s-k-i-ff ? Ye 're cr-razy, mon ! " 

" Oh, not at alh We understand our rights, 
and wish you to lock us through. And, if 
you please, we're in something of a hurry." 
As I said this I consulted my watch, and after 
returning it to my pocket resumed a vacant 
gaze upon the outspread leaves of the novel. 

The tender — for we had guessed rightly ; 
it was the tender — advanced to the edge of 
the basin, and looked with inexpressible scorn 
upon our Liliputian craft. " Now, look here, 
gints," he said, somewhat more conciliatory, 
" I Ve been here for twinty years, an' know 
the law ; an' the law don't admit no skiffs, ye 
mind y'ur eye. An' the divil a bit of lock- 
age will ye git here, an' mind that ! " And 
then he walked away. 

We were very patient. The rim of the 
lock became lined with small boys and smaller 
girls, for this is Saturday, and a school holiday ; 
and there was great wonderment at the men 
in the canoe, who " were having a bloody old 
row with Barney, the lock-tinder," as one boy 
vigorously expressed the situation to a bevy 
of new-comers. By and by Barney returned 
to see if we were still there. We were, and 
were so abstracted that we did not heed his 
presence. 



2 12 Historic Waterways. 

*' Will, ye ain't gone yit, I see ? " said 
Barney. 

The Doctor roused himself, and pulling out 
his watch, appeared to be greatly surprised. 
" I do declare," he ejaculated, " if we have n't 
been waiting here nearly half an hour ! I 
say, my man, this sort of delay is inexcus- 
able. It will read badly in a report to the 
Engineering Bureau. What is your number, 
sir ? " And with a stern expression he pro- 
duced his tablets, prepared to jot down the 
numeral. 

Barney was clearly weakening. His return 
to see if the " bluff " had worked was an evi- 
dence of that. The Doctor's severe official 
manner, and our quiet persistence appeared 
to convince Barney that he had made a grave 
mistake. So he hurried off to the lower 
capstans, growling something about being 
" oft'n fooled with fish'n' parties." When we 
were through we left Barney a cigar on the 
curbing, and gently admonished him never 
again to be so rude to canoeists, or some day 
he would get reported. As we pushed off he 
bade us an affectionate farewell, and said he 
had sent his " lad " ahead to see that we had 
no trouble at the four lower locks. We did 
not see the lad ; but certain it is that the other 
tenders were prompt and courteous, and we 



Locked Through. 213 

felt that the cigars which we distributed along 
the Kaukauna Canal were not illy bestowed. 

Progress was slow to-day, owing to the 
delays in locking. Ordinarily, we make from 
thirty to forty miles, — on the Rock, you 
remember, we averaged forty. But it was 
nearly sunset when we passed under the old 
wagon bridge at Wrightstown, only seventeen 
miles below our starting-point of this morning. 
We paused for a minute or two, to talk with 
a peaceably disposed lad, who was the sole pa- 
tron of the bridge and lay sprawled across the 
board foot-walk, with his head under the rail- 
ing, fishing as contentedly as though he lay 
on a grassy bank, after the manner of the 
gentle Izaak. When old Mr. Wright was 
around, Wrightstown may have been quite 
a place. But it is now going the way of so 
many river towns. There is a small, rickety 
saw-mill in operation, to which farmers from 
the back country haul in pine logs, of which 
there are some hundreds neatly piled in an 
adjoining field. Another saw-mill shell is 
hard by, the home of owls and bats, — a de- 
serted skeleton, whose spirit, in the shape of 
machinery, has departed to Ashland, a more 
modern paradise of the buzz-saw. The vil- 
lage, dressed in that tone of pearly gray with 
which kind Nature decks those habitations 



214 Historic Waterways, 

left paintless by neglectful man, — is prettily- 
situated on the high banks which uniformly 
hedge in the Lower Fox. On the highest 
knoll of all is a modest little frame church 
whose spire — white, after a fashion — is a 
prominent landmark to river travelers. There 
are the remains of once well-kept gardens, 
upon the upper terraces ; of somewhat elab- 
orate fences, now swaying to and fro and weak 
in the knees ; of sidewalks which have become 
pitfalls; of impenetrable thickets of lilacs, 
hedging lonely spots that once were homes. 
On the village street, only a few idlers were 
seen, gathered in knots of two or three in 
front of the barber shop and the saloons ; the 
smith at his forge was working late, shoeing 
a country team ; and two angular dames, in 
rusty sun-bonnets, were gossiping over a barn- 
yard gate. That was all we saw of Wrights- 
town, as we drifted northward in company 
with the reeling bubbles, down through the 
deepening shadow cast by the western bank. 

Here and there, where the land chances to 
slope gently to the water's edge, are small 
piles of logs, drawn on farm sleds during the 
winter season from depleted pineries, all the 
way from three to ten miles back. When 
wanted at the saw-mills down the river, or 
just above, at Wrightstown, they are loosely 



Locked Through, 215 

made up into small rafts and poled to market. 
Along the stream there are but few pines left, 
and they generally crown some rocky ledge, 
not easily accessible. A few small clumps are 
preserved, however, relics of the forest's for- 
mer state, to adorn private grounds or enhance 
the gloomy tone of little hillside cemeteries. 
There must have been an impressive grandeur 
about the scenery of the Lower Fox in the 
early day, before the woodman's axe leveled 
the great pines which then swept down in 
solid rank to the river beach, closely hedging 
in the dark and rapid flood. 

We lunched upon a stone terrace, above 
which swayed in the evening breeze the 
dense, solemn branches of a giant native, one 
of the last of his fated race. The channel 
curved below, and the range of vision was 
short, between the stately banks, heavily 
fringed as they are with aspen and scrub-oak. 
As we sat in the gathering gloom and gayly 
chatted over the simple adventures which are 
making up this week of ideal vacation life, 
there came up from the depths below the 
steady swish and pant of a river steamboat, — 
rare object upon our lonesome journey. As 
the bulky craft came slowly around the bend, 
the pant became a subdued roar, awakening a 
dull echo from the wooded slopes. A small 



2i6 Historic Waterways. 

knot of passengers lolled around the pilot- 
house, on which we were just able to discern 
the name *' Evalyn, of Oshkosh," in burnished 
gilt ; on the freight deck there were bales and 
boxes of merchandise, and heaps of lumber ; 
two stokers were feeding cord-wood to the 
furnace flames, which lit the scene with lurid 
glare, after the fashion of theatric fires ; the 
roustabouts were fastening night lanterns to 
the rails. The V-shaped wake of her wheel- 
barrow stern broke upon the shores like a 
tidal wave, and the canoe, luckily well fas- 
tened to the roots of a stranded tree, bobbed 
up and down as would a chip tossed on the 
billows. 

Four miles below Wrightstown is Little 
Kaukauna. There are three or four cottages 
here, well up on the pleasant western bank, 
overlooking a deserted saw-mill property ; 
while just beyond, a government lock does 
duty whenever needed, and the rest of the 
now broadened stream is stemmed by a mag- 
nificent dam, from the foot of which arises 
a dense cloud of vapor, such is the force of 
the torrent which pours with a mighty sweep 
over the great chute. As we stole down 
upon the hamlet, the moon, a day or two past 
full, was just rising over the opposite hillocks ; 
a tall pine standing out boldly from its lesser 



Locked Through, 217 

fellows, was weirdly silhouetted across her 
beaming face, and in the cottage windows 
lights gleamed a homely welcome. 

We were cordially received at the house of 
the patriarch of the settlement. We made 
our craft secure for the night, " toted " our 
baggage up the bank, and paused upon the 
broad porch of our new-found friend to con- 
template a most charming moonlit view of 
river and forest and glade and cataract ; the 
cloud of mist rising high above the roaring 
declivity seemed as an incense offering to 
the goddess of the night. 



SIXTH LETTER. 

THE BAY SETTLEMENT. 

Green Bay, Wis., June 13, 1887. 

MY DEAR W : We had a quiet Sun- 
day at Little Kaukauna. Being a 
delightful day, we went with our entertainers 
to the country church, a mile or two back 
across the fields, and whiled away the rest 
of the time in strolling through the woods 
and gossiping with the farmers about the 
crops and the government improvement, — 
fertile themes. It appears that this diminutive 
hamlet of four or five houses anticipates a 
" boom," and there is some feverish anxiety 
as to how much village lots ought to bring as 
a " starter " when the rush actually opens- 
A syndicate has purchased the long-abandoned 
water-power, and it is whispered that paper- 
mills are to be erected, with cottages for oper- 
atives, and all that sort of thing. Then, the 
church and the depot will have to be brought 



The Bay Settlement, 2 1 9 

into town ; the proprietor of the cross-roads 
grocery, now out on the ** country road," will 
be erecting a brick "block " by the river side ; 
somebody will be starting a daily paper, 
printed from stereotype plates imported from 
Oshkosh or Chicago ; and a summer resort 
hotel with a magnetic spring, will doubtless 
cap the climax of village greatness. I shall 
look with interest on reports from the Little 
Kaukauna boom. 

It was nine o'clock this morning before we 
dipped paddle and bore down to the lock 
gates. The good-natured tender ** dropped " 
us through with much alacrity. The river 
gradually widens, and here and there the 
high rolling banks recede for some distance, 
and marshes and bayous, excellent hunting- 
grounds, border the stream. A half mile 
below the lock we noticed a roughly built hut, 
open at front, such as would quarter a pig in 
the shanty outskirts of a great city. It 
looked lonesome, on the edge of a wide bog, 
with no other sign of habitation, either human 
or animal, in the watery landscape. Curiosity 
impelled us to stop. Crossing a plank, which 
rested one end on a snag and the other on a 
stone in front of the three-sided structure, we 
peered in. A bundle of rags lay in one 
corner of the floor of loosely laid boards ; in 



2 20 Historic Waterways, 

another was a heap of clamshells, the contents 
of which had doubtless been cooked over a 
little fire which still smouldered in a neigh- 
boring clump of reeds. The odors were noi- 
some, and a foot rise of water would have 
swamped out the dweller in this strange 
abode. We at once took it for granted that 
this was either the home of an Indian or a 
tramp. Just as we were leaving, however, 
a frowsy, dirty, but apparently good-tempered 
fisherman came rowing up and claimed the 
cabin as his home. He said that he spent 
the greater part of the year in this filthy hole, 
hunting or fishing according to the season ; in 
the winter, he boarded up the front, leaving a 
hole to crawl out of, and banked the hut about 
with reeds and muck. Wrightstown was his 
market ; and he " managed to scratch," he 
said, by being economical. I asked him how 
much it cost him in cash to exist in this 
state, which was but slightly removed from 
the condition of our ancestral cave-dwellers. 
He thought that with twenty-five dollars in 
cash, he could "manage to scratch finely" 
for an entire year, and have besides " a week 
ofi" with the boys," — in other words, one pro- 
longed drinking bout, — at Wrightstown. 
He complained, however, that he seldom re- 
ceived money, being mainly put off with 



The Bay Settlement, 221 

barter. The poor fellow, evidently some- 
thing of a simpleton, is probably the vic- 
tim of sharp practice occasionally. As we 
paddled away from this singular character, 
the Doctor said that he had a novel-writins: 
friend, given to the sensational, to whom he 
would like to introduce The Wild Fisherman 
of Little Kaukauna ; he thought there was 
material for a romance here, particularly if it 
could be proved, as was quite possible, that 
the hut man was the lost heir of a British 
dukedom. 

But the site of another and a stranger ro- 
mance is but half a mile farther down. The 
river there suddenly broadens into a basin, 
fully half a mile in width. To the east, 
the banks are quite abrupt. The westward 
shore is a gentle, grass-grown slope, stretch- 
ing up beyond a charming little bay formed 
by a spit of meadow. Near the sandy beach of 
this bay a country highway passes, winding 
in and out and up and down, as it follows the 
river and the bases of the knolls. Above 
this and commanding delightful glimpses of 
forest and stream and bayou and prairie, a 
goodly hillock is crowned, some seventy-five 
feet above the water's edge, with a dark, un- 
painted, time-worn, moss-grown house, part 
log and part frame, set in a deep tangle of 



2 22 Historic Waterways, 

lilacs and crabs. The quaint old structure is 
of the simple pioneer pattern, — a story and 
a half, with gables on the north and south 
ends of the main part ; and a small transverse 
wing to the rear, with connecting rooms. 
The ancient picket gate creaks on its one 
rusty hinge. The front door has the appear- 
ance of being nailed up, and across its frame 
a dozen fat spiders, most successful of fly 
fishers, have stretched their gluey nets. The 
path, once leading thither, is now o'ergrown 
with grass and lilacs, while in the surrounding 
snarl of weeds and poplar suckers are seen 
the blossoming remnants of peonies, and a 
few old-fashioned garden shrubs. 

The ground is historic. The house is an 
ancient landmark. It was the old home of 
Eleazar Williams, in his day Episcopal mis- 
sionary and pretender to the throne of France. 
Williams was the reputed son of a mixed- 
blood couple of the Mohawk band of Indians ; 
in early life, he claimed to have been born in 
the vicinity of Montreal, in 1792. A bright 
youth, he was educated for the ministry of 
the Protestant Episcopal church and sent as a 
missionary in 18 16-18 17 to the Oneida In- 
dians, then located in Oneida county, New 
York. During the war of 1812, he had been 
employed as a spy by the American authorities 



The Bay Settlement. 223 

to trace the movements of British troops in 
Canada. Williams, from the first, became 
engaged in intrigues among the New York 
Indians, and was the originator of the move- 
ment which resulted, in 1822, in the purchase 
by the war department of a large strip of 
land from the Menomonees and Winneba- 
goes, along the Lower Fox River, and the 
removal hither of several of the New York 
bands, accompanied by the scheming priest 
But the result was jealousy between the new- 
comers and the original tribes, with sixteen 
years of confusion and turmoil, during which 
Congress was frequently engaged in settling 
the squabbles that arose. Williams's original 
idea was said, by those who knew him best, 
to be the "total subjugation of the whole 
[Green Bay] country and the establishment 
of an Indian government, of which he was to 
be sole dictator." ^ 

But his purpose failed. He came to be 
recosfnized as an unscrupulous fellow, and the 
majority of the whites and Indians on the 
Lower Fox, as well as his clerical brethren, 
regarded him with contempt. In 1853, Wil- 
liams, baffled in every other field of notoriety 
which he had worked, suddenly posed before 
the American public as Louis XVII., heredi- 

1 Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. ii. p. 425- 



2 24 Historic Waterways, 

tary sovereign of France. Upon the downfall 
of the Bourbons in 1792, you will remember 
that Louis XVI. and his queen, Marie An- 
toinette, were beheaded, while their son, the 
dauphin Louis, an imbecile child of eight, 
was cast into the temple tower by the revolu- 
tionists. It is officially recorded that after an 
imprisonment of two years the dauphin died 
in the tower and was buried. But the story 
v\^as started and popularly believed, that the 
real dauphin had been abducted by the royal- 
ists and another child cunningly substituted 
to die there in the dauphin's place. The story 
went that the dauphin had been sent to 
America and all traces of him lost, thus giving 
any adventurer of the requisite age and suffi- 
ciently obscure birth, opportunity to seek such 
honor as might be gained in claiming identity 
with the escaped prisoner. Williams was too 
young by eight years to be the dauphin ; 
he was clearly of Indian extraction, — a fair 
type of the half-breed, in color, form, and 
feature. But he succeeded in deceiving a 
number of good people, including several 
leading doctors in his church ; while an Epis- 
copal clergyman named John H. Hanson 
attempted, in two articles in " Putnam's Mag- 
azine," in 1853, and afterwards in an elaborate 
book, " The Lost Prince," to prove conclu- 



The Bay Settlement, 225 

sively to the world that Williams was indeed 
the son of the executed monarch. While 
those who really knew Williams treated his 
claims as fraudulent, and his dusky father and 
mother protested under oath that Eleazar was 
their son, and every allegation of Williams, in 
the premises, had been often exposed as false, 
there were still many who believed in him. 
The excitement attracted attention in France. 
One or two royalists came over to see Wil- 
liams, but left disappointed ; and Louis Phi- 
lippe sent him a present of some finely bound 
books, believing him to be the innocent victim 
of a delusion. Williams died in 1858, keeping 
up his absurd pretensions to the last. 

It was in this house near Little Kaukauna 
that Williams lived for so many years, man- 
aging and preaching to his scattered flock of 
immigrant Indians, and forever seeking some 
sort of especially profitable employment, such 
as accompanying tribal delegations to Wash- 
ington, or acting as special commissioner at 
government payments. In the earliest days, 
the house was situated on the spit of meadow 
I have previously spoken of; but when the 
dam at Depere raised the water, the frame 
was carried to this higher position. 

Williams's wife, an octoroon, whose portrait 
shows her to have been a thick-set, stolid sort 
15 



2 26 Historic Waterways, 

of woman, died here, a year ago, and is buried 
hard by. The present occupants of the house 
are Mary Garritty, an Indian woman of sixty- 
five years, and her half-breed daughter, 
Josephine Penney, who in turn has an in- 
fant child of two. Mary was reared by the 
Williamses, and told us many a curious story 
of life at the " agency," as she called it, during 
the time when "Mr. Williams and Ma" were 
alive. Josephine, who confided to me that 
she was thirty years old, was regularly 
adopted by Mrs. Williams, for whose memory 
both women seem to have a very strong re- 
spect. What little personal property was left 
by the old woman goes to her grandchildren, 
intelligent and well-educated Oshkosh citizens, 
but Josephine has the sandy farm of sixty- 
five acres. She took me into the attic to ex- 
hibit such relics of the alleged dauphin as 
had not been disposed of by the administra- 
tor of the estate. There were a hundred or 
two mice-eaten volumes, mainly theological 
and school text-books ; several old volumes of 
sermons, — for Eleazar is said to have con- 
sidered it better taste in him to copy a dis- 
course from an approved authority than to 
endeavor to compose one that would not sat- 
isfy him half as well ; a boxful of manuscript 
odds and ends, chiefly letters, Indian glos- 



The Bay Settlement, 227 

saries and copied sermons ; two or three 
leather-bound trunks, a copper tea-kettle used 
by him upon his long boat journeys, and a 
pair of antiquated brass candlesticks. 

Then we descended to the old orchard. 
Mary pointed out the spot, a rod or two south 
of the dwelling, where Williams had his library 
and mission-office in a log-house that has 
long since been removed for firewood. In 
this cabin, which had floor dimensions of fif- 
teen by twenty feet, Williams met his Indian 
friends and transacted business with them. 
Mary, in her querulous tone, said that in those 
days the place abounded with Indians, night 
and day, and as they always expected to be 
fed, she had her hands full attending to their 
wants. " There wa'n't no peace at all, sir, 
so long as Mr. Williams were here ; when he 
were gone there wa'n't so many of them, an' 
we got a rest, which I were mighty thankful 
for." Garrulous Mary, in her moccasins and 
blanket skirt, with a complexion like brown 
parchment and as wrinkled, — almost a full- 
blood herself, — has lived so long apart from 
her people that she appears to have forgot- 
ten her race, and inveighed right vigorously 
against the unthrifty and beggarly habits 
of the aborigines. "I hate them pesky 
Indians," she cried in a burst of righteous 



2 28 Historic Waterways, 

indignation, and then turned to croon over 
Josephine's baby, as veritable a "little 
Indian boy" as I ever met with in a forest 
wigwam. "He's a fine feller, isn't he?" 
she cried, as she chucked her grandson 
under the chin ; " some says as he looks like 
Mr. Williams, sir." The Doctor, who is a 
judge of babies, declared, in a professional 
tone that did not admit of contradiction, that 
the infant was, indeed, a fine specimen of 
humanity. 

And thus we left the two women in a most 
contented frame of mind, and descended to 
the beach, bearing with us Josephine's part- 
ing salute, shouted from the garden gate, — 
" Call agin, whene'er ye pass this way ! " 

Depere is five miles below. The banks 
are bold as far as there ; but beyond, they 
flatten out into gently sloping meadows, va- 
ried here and there by the re-approach of a 
high ridge on the eastern shore, — the west- 
ern getting to be quite marshy by the time 
Fort Howard is reached. 

At Depere are the first rapids of the Fox, 
the fall being about twelve feet. From the 
earliest period recorded by the French 
explorers, there was a polyglot Indian set- 
tlement upon the portage-trail, and in De- 
cember, 1669, the Jesuit missionary Allouez 



The Bay Settlement, 229 

established St. Francis Xavier mission here, 
the locality being henceforth styled " Rapide 
des Peres." It was from this station that 
Allouez, Dablon, Joliet, and Marquette started 
upon their memorable canoe voyages up the 
Fox, in search of benighted heathen and the 
Mississippi River. For over a century Rapide 
des Peres was a prominent landmark in North- 
western history. The Depere of to-day is a 
solid-looking town, with an iron furnace, saw- 
mills, and other industries ; and after a long 
period of stagnation is experiencing a healthy 
business revival. 

Unable to find the tender at this the last lock 
on our course, we portaged after the manner 
of old-time canoeists, and set out upon the 
home stretch of six miles. Green Bay, upon 
the eastern bank and Fort Howard upon the 
western, were well in view ; and, it being not 
past two o'clock in the afternoon of a cool 
and somewhat cloudy day, we allowed the 
current to be our chief propeller, only now 
and then using the paddles to keep our bark 
well in the main current. 

The many pretty residences of South Green 
Bay, including the ruins of Navarino, Astor, 
and Shanty Town, are situated well up on an 
attractive sloping ridge ; but the land soon 
drops to an almost swampy level, upon which 



230 Historic Water-ways, 

the greater portion of the business quarter is 
built. Opposite, Fort Howard with her mills 
and coal-docks skirts a wide-spreading bog, 
much of the flat, sleepy old town being built 
on a foundation of saw-mill offal. Histori- 
cally, both sides of the river may be practically 
treated as the old *' Bay Settlement," for two 
and a half centuries one of the most con- 
spicuous outposts of American civilization. 
Here came savage-trained Nicolet, exploring 
agent of Champlain, in 1634, when Plymouth 
colony was still in swaddling-clothes. It was 
the day when the China Sea was supposed 
to be somewhere in the neighborhood of the 
Great Lakes. Nicolet had heard that at Green 
Bay he would meet a strange people, who had 
come from beyond "a great water" to the 
west. He was therefore prepared to meet 
here a colony of Chinamen or Japanese, if 
indeed Green Bay were not the Orient itself. 
His mistake was a natural one. The " strange 
people" were Winnebago Indians. A branch 
of the Dakotahs, or Sioux, a distinct race from 
the Algonquins, they forced themselves across 
the Mississippi River, up the Wisconsin, and 
down the Fox, to Green Bay, entering the Al- 
gonquin territory like a wedge, and forever 
after maintaining their foothold upon this in- 
terlocked water highway. *' The great water," 



The Bay Settlement, 231 

supposed by Nicolet to mean the China Sea, 
was the Mississippi River, beyond which bar- 
rier the Dakotah race held full sway. As he 
approached, one of his Huron guides was sent 
forward to herald his coming. Landing near 
the mouth of the river, he attired himself in a 
gorgeous damask gown, decorated with gayly 
colored birds and flowers, expecting to meet 
mandarins who would be similarly dressed, 
A horde of four or five thousand naked sav- 
ages greeted him. He advanced, discharging 
the pistols which he held in either hand, and 
women and children fled in terror from the 
manitou who carried with him lightning and 
thunder. 

The mouth of the Fox was always a favorite 
rallying-point for the savages of this section of 
the Northwest, and many a notable council has 
been held here between tribes of painted red 
men and Jesuits, traders, explorers, and mili- 
tary officers. Being the gateway of one of 
the two great routes to the Mississippi, many 
notable exploring and military expeditions 
have rested here ; and French, English, and 
Americans in turn have maintained forts to 
protect the interests of territorial possession 
and the fur-trade. 

Here it was that a white man first set foot 
on Wisconsin soil; and here, also, in 1745, 



232 Historic Waterways, 

the De Langlades, first permanent settlers of 
the Badger State, reared their log cabins and 
initiated a semblance of white man's civiliza- 
tion. Green Bay, now hoary with age, has 
had an eventful, though not stirring history. 
For a hundred years she was a distributing- 
point for the fur-trade. 

The descendants of the De Langlades, the 
Grignons and other colonists of nearly a cen- 
tury and a half standing, are still on the spot ; 
and the gossip of the hour among the voya- 
geurs and old traders still left among us is of 
John Jacob Astor, Ramsay Crooks, Robert 
Stuart, Major Twiggs, and other characters 
of the early years of our century, whose names 
are well known to frontier history. The Creole 
quarter of this ancient town, shiftless and im- 
provident to-day as it always has been, lives 
in an atmosphere hazy with poetic glamour, 
reveling in the recollection of a once festive, 
half-savage life, when the courier de bois and 
the engage were in the ascendency at this for- 
est outpost, and the fur-trade the be-all and 
end-all of commercial enterprise. Your voy- 
ageiir, scratching a painful living for a hybrid 
brood from his meager potato patch, bemoans 
the day when Yankee progressiveness dammed 
the Fox for Yankee saw-mills, into whose in- 
satiable maws were swept the forests of his 



The Bay Settlement. 233 

youth, and remembers nought but the sweets 
of his early calling among his boon compan- 
ions, the denizens of the wilderness. 

In Shanty Town, Astor, and Navarino there 
yet remain many dwellings and trading ware- 
houses of the olden time, — unpainted, gaunt, 
poverty-stricken, but with their hand-hewed 
skeletons of oak still intact beneath the rags 
of a century's decay. A hundred years is a 
period quite long enough in our land to war- 
rant the brand of antiquity, although a mere 
nothing in the prolonged career of the Old 
World. In the rapidly developing West, a 
hundred years and less mark the gap be- 
tween a primeval wilderness and a complete 
civilization. Time, like space, is, after all, but 
comparative. In these hundred years the 
Northwest has developed from nothing to 
everything. It is as great a period, judging 
by results, as ten centuries in Europe, — per- 
haps fifteen. America is said to have no 
history. On the contrary, it has the most 
romantic of histories ; but it has lived faster 
and crowded more and greater deeds into the 
past hundred years than slow-going Europe 
in the last ten hundred. The American cen- 
tenarian of to-day is older by far than the 
fabled Methuselah. 

Green Bay, classic in her shanty ruins, has 



234 Historic Waterways, 

been somewhat halting in her advance, for the 
Creoles hamper progressiveness. But as the 
voyagenrs and their immediate progeny 
gradually pass away, the community creeps 
out from the shadow of the past and 
asserts itself. The ancient town appears to 
be taking on a new and healthy growth, in 
strange contrast to the severe and battered 
architecture of frontier times. Socially, 
Green Bay is delightful. There are many old 
families, whose founders were engaged in 
superintending the fur-trade and transporta- 
tion lines, or holding government office, 
civil or military, at the wilderness post. This 
element, well educated and reared in comfort, 
gives a tone of dignified, old-school hospital- 
ity to the best society, — it is the Knicker- 
bocker Colony of the Bay Settlement. 

At four o'clock we pushed into a canal in 
front of the Fort Howard railway depot, and 
half an hour later had crossed the bridge and 
were registered at a Green Bay hotel. The 
Doctor, called home to resume the humdrum 
of his hospital life, will leave for the South 
to-morrow noon. I shall remain here for a 
week, reposing in the shades of antiquity. 



THE WISCONSIN RIVER. 




THE WISCONSIN RIVER. 



CHAPTER I. 



ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS. 



OUR watches, for a wonder, coincided 
on Monday afternoon, Aug. 22, 1887. 

This phenomenon is so rare that W made 

a note in her diary to the effect that for 
once in its long career my time-piece was 
right. It was five minutes past two. The 
place was the beach at Portage, just below 
the old red wagon-bridge which here spans 
the gloomy Wisconsin. A teamster had 
hauled us, our canoe, and our baggage from 
the depot to the verge of a sand-bank ; and 
we had dragged our faithful craft down 
through a tangle of sand-burrs and tin cans 
to the water's edge, and packed the locker for 
its third and final voyage of the season. A 



238 Historic Waterways, 

German housewife, with red kerchief, cap, and 
tucked-up skirt, stood out in the water on the 
edge of a gravel-spit, engaged in her weekly 
wrestle with the family wash, — a picturesque, 
foreign-looking scene. On the summit of a 
sandy promontory to our left, two other Ger- 
man housewives leaned over a pig-yard fence 
and gazed intently down at these strange 
preparations. Back of us were the wooded 
sand-drifts of Portage, once a famous camping- 
ground of the Winnebagoes ; before us, the 
dark, treacherous river, wdth its shallows and 
its mysterious depths ; beyond that, great 
stretches of sand-fields thick-strewn with wil- 
low forests and, three or four miles away, 
the forbidding range of the Baraboo Bluffs, 
veiled in the heavy mist which was rapidly 
closing upon the valley. 

We feared that we were booked for a stormy 
trip, as we pushed out into the bubble-strewn 
current and found that a cold east wind was 
blowing over the flats and rowing-jackets were 
essential. 

Portage City, a town of twenty-five hundred 
inhabitants, occupies the southeastern bank 
for a mile down. Like Green Bay and Prairie 
du Chien, it was an outgrowth of the necessi- 
ties of the early fur-trade. Upon the death of 
that trade it languished and for a generation 



Alone in the Wilderness. 239 

or two was utterly stagnant. As a rural 
trading centre it has since grown into a state 
of fair prosperity, although the presence of 
many of the old-time buildings of the Indian 
traders and transporters gives to much of the 
town a sadly decayed appearance. For two 
or three miles we had Portage in view, down 
a straight course, until at last the thickening 
mist hid the time-worn houses from view, and 
we were fairly on our way down the historic 
Wisconsin, in the wake of Joliet and Mar- 
quette, who first traversed this highway to the 
Mississippi, two hundred and fourteen years 
ago. 

Marquette, in the journal of his memorable 
voyage, says of the Wisconsin, " It is very 
broad, with a sandy bottom, forming many 
shallows, which render navigation very diffi- 
cult." The river has been frequently de- 
scribed in the journals of later voyagers, and 
government engineers have written long re- 
ports upon its condition, but they have not 
bettered Marquette's comprehensive phrase. 

The general government has spent enor- 
mous sums in an endeavor to make the Fox- 
Wisconsin water highway practicable for the 
passage of large steam-vessels between the 
Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. It 
was of great service, in its natural state, for 



240 Historic Waterways, 

the passage into the heart of the continent of 
that motley procession of priests, explorers, 
cavaliers, soldiers, trappers, and traders who 
paddled their canoes through here for nearly 
two hundred years, the pioneers of French, 
English, and American civilization in turn. 
It is still a tempting scheme, to tap the main 
artery of America, and allow modern vessels 
of burden to make the circuit between the 
lakes and the gulf. The Fox River is reason- 
ably tractable, although this season the stage 
of water above Berlin has been hardly high 
enough to float a flat-boat. But the Wis- 
consin remains, despite the hundreds of wing- 
dams which line her shores, a fickle jade upon 
whom no reliance whatever can be placed. 
The current and the sand-banks shift about 
at their sweet will over a broad valley, and 
the pilot of one season would scarcely recog- 
nize the stream another. Navigation for 
crafts drawing over a foot of water is practi- 
cally impossible in seasons of drought, and 
uncertain in all. A noted engineer has 
playfully said that the Wisconsin can never 
be regulated, '' until the bottom is lathed and 
plastered ; " and another officially reported, 
over fifteen years ago, that nothing short of 
a continuous canal along the bank, from 
Portage to Prairie du Chien, will suffice to 



Alone in the Wilderness. 241 

meet the expectations of those who favor the 
government improvement of this impossible 
highway. 

In the neighborhood of Portage, the wing- 
dams, — composed of mattresses of willow 
boughs, weighted with stone, — are in a 
reasonable degree of preservation and in 
places appear to be of some avail in contract- 
ing the channel. But elsewhere down the 
river, they are generally mere hindrances to 
canoeing. The current, as it caroms from 
shore to shore, pays but little heed to these 
obstructions and we often found it swiftest 
over the places where black lines of willow 
twigs bob and sway above the surface of the 
rushing water ; while the channel staked out 
by the engineers was the site of a sand-field, 
studded with aspen-brush. 

It is a lonely run of an hour and a half 
down to the mouth of the Baraboo River, 
through the mazes of the wing-dams, sur- 
rounded by desolate bottom lands of sand and 
wooded bog. The east wind had brought a 
smart shower by the time we had arrived off 
the mouth of this northern tributary and we 
hauled up at a low, forested bank just be- 
low the junction, where rubber coats were 
brought out and canvas spread over the stores. 
The rain soon settled into a mere drizzle, 
16 



242 Historic Waterways, 

and W , ever eager in her botanical re- 
searches, wandered about regardless of wet 
feet, investigating the flora of the locality. 
The yellow sneeze-weed and purple iron-weed 
predominate in great clumps upon the verge 
of the bank, and lend a cheerful tone to what 
would otherwise be a desolate landscape. 

The drizzle finally ceasing, we were again 
afloat, and after shooting by scores of wing- 
dams that had been " snowed under " by shift- 
ing sand, and floating over others that were 
in the heart of the present channel, we came 
to Dekorra, some seven miles below Portage. 
Dekorra is a quaint little hamlet, with just 
five weather-worn houses and a blacksmith- 
shop in sight, nestled in a hollow at the base 
of a blufl" on the southern bank. The river 
courses at its feet, and from the top of a naked 
cliff" a ferry-wire stretches high above the 
stream and loses itself among the trees on the 
opposite bottoms. The east wind whistled a 
pretty note as it was split by the swaying 
thread, and the anvil by the smith's forge 
rang out in unison, clear as a well-toned bell. 
A crude cemetery, apparently containing far 
more graves than Dekorra's present census 
would show inhabitants, flanks the faded-out 
settlement on the shoulder of an adjoining 
hill. The road to the tattered ferry-boat, 



Alone in the Wilderness. 243 

rotting on the beach, gave but Httle evidence 
of recent use, for Dekorra is a reUc. 

The valley of the Wisconsin is from three 
to five miles broad, flanked on either side, 
below the Portage, by an undulating range of 
imposing bluffs, from one hundred and fifty 
to three hundred and fifty feet in height. 
They are heavily wooded, as a rule, although 
there is much variety, — pleasant grass-grown 
slopes ; naked, water-washed escarpments, 
rising sheer above the stream ; terraced hills, 
with eroded faces, ascending in a regular suc- 
cession of benches to the cliff-like tops ; steep 
uplands, either covered with a dense and reg- 
ular growth of forest, or shattered by fire 
or tornado. The ravines and pocket-fields 
between the bluffs are often of exceeding 
beauty, especially when occupied by a modest 
little village, — or better, by some small settler, 
whose outlet to the country beyond the edge 
of his mountain basin may be seen threading 
the woodlands which tower above him, or zig- 
zagging through a neighboring pass, worn 
deep by some impatient spring torrent in a 
hurry to reach the river level. 

Between these ranges stretches a wide ex- 
panse of bottoms, either bog or sand plain, 
over all of which the river flows at high 
water, and through which the swift current 



244 Historic Waterways. 

twists and bounds like a serpent in agony, 
constantly cutting out new channels and filling 
up the old, obeying laws of its own, ever de- 
fying the calculations of pilots and engineers. 
As it thus sweeps along, wherever its fancy 
listeth, here to-day and there to-morrow, it 
forms innumerable islands which greatly add 
to the picturesqueness of the view. Now and 
then there are two or three parallel channels, 
running along for miles before they join, per- 
plexing the traveler with a labyrinth of water 
paths. These islands are often mere sand- 
bars, sometimes as barren as Sahara, again 
thick-grown with willows and seedling aspens ; 
but for the most part they are well-wooded, 
their banks gay with the season's flowers, and 
luxuriant vines hanging in deep festoons from 
the trees which overhang the flood. At their 
heads, often high up among the branches of 
the elms, are great masses of driftwood, the 
remains of shattered lumber-rafts or saw-mill 
offal from the great northern pineries, evi- 
dencing the height of the spring flood which 
so often converts the Wisconsin into an 
Amazon. 

Because of this spreading habit of the 
stream, the few villages along the way are 
planted on the higher land at the base of the 
bluffs, or on an occasional sandy pocket- 



Alone in the Wilderness. 245 

plateau which the river, as in ages past it has 
worn its bed to lower levels, has left high 
and dry above present overflows. Some of 
these towns, in their fear of floods, are situ- 
ated two or three miles back from the water 
highway ; others, where the channel chances 
to closely hug a line of bluffs, are directly abut- 
ting the river, which is crossed at such points 
by either a ferry or a toll-bridge. 

Desolate as is the prospect from Dekorra's 
front door, we found the limestone cliff there, 
a mine of attractiveness. The river has 
worn miniature caves and grottoes in its 
base ; at the mouths of several of these there 
are little rocky beaches, whose overhanging 
walls are flecked with ferns, lichens, and 
graceful columbines. 

At six o'clock that evening, in the midst of 
a dispiriting Scotch mist, we disembarked 
upon the northern bank, at the foot of a 
wooded bluff, and prepared to settle for the 
night. Fortunately, we had advance knowl- 
edge of the sparseness of settlement along 
the river, and had come with a tent and a 
cooking outfit, prepared for camping in case 
of need. Upon a rocky bench, fifty feet up 
from the water, we stretched a rope between 
two trees, to serve in lieu of a ridge-pole, and 
pitched our canvas domicile. It was a lone- 



246 Historic Waterways. 

some spot which we had chosen for our night's 
halt. Owing to the configuration of the bluffs, 
it was unlikely that any person dwelt within 
a mile of us on our shore. Across the valley, 
we looked over several miles of bottom woods, 
while far up on the opposite slopes could just 
be discerned the gables of two white farm- 
houses, peering out from a wilderness of trees 
stretching far and wide, till its limits were 
lost in the gathering fog. 

It was pitchy dark by the time we had com- 
pleted our camping arrangements, and W 

announced that the coffee was boiling over. 
I fancy we two must have presented a rather 
forlorn appearance, as we crouched at our 
evening meal around the sputtering little fire, 
clad in heavy jackets and rubber coats, for 
the atmosphere was raw and clammy. The 
wood was wet, and the shifting gusts would 
persist in blowing the smoke in our eyes, 
whichever position we took. Every falling 
bough, or rustle of a water-laden sapling, was 
suggestive of tramps or of inquisitive hogs or 
cattle, for we knew not what neighbors we 
had ; many a time we paused, and peering 
out into the black night, listened intently for 
further developments. And then the strange 
noises from the river, unnoticed during day- 
light, were not conducive to mental ease. 



Alo7ie in the Wilderness. 247 

when we nervously associated them with 
roving fishermen, or perhaps tramps, attracted 
by our Hght from the opposite shore. Some- 
times we felt positive that we heard the 
muffled creak of oars, fast approaching ; then 
would come loud splashes and gurgles, and 
ever and anon it would seem as if some one 
were slapping the water with a board. Now 
near, now far away, approaching and receding 
by turns, these mysterious sounds continued 
through the night, occasionally relieved by 
moments of absolute silence. We afterward 
discovered that these were the customary 
refrains sung by the gay tide, as it washed 
over the wing-dams, swished around the sand- 
banks, and dashed against great snags and 
island heads. 

But we did not know this then, and a cer- 
tain uneasy lonesomeness overcame us as 
strangers to the scene ; and I must confess 
that, despite our philosophizing, there was 
but little sleep for us that first camp out. 
A neglect to procure straw to soften our 
rocky couches, and a woful insufficiency of 
bed-clothing for a phenomenally cold August 
night, added to our manifold discomforts. 




CHAPTER II. 

THE LAST OF THE SACS. 

T^AWN came at five, and none too soon. 
-*-^ But after thawing out over the break- 
fast fire and draining the coffee-pot dry, we 
were wondrously rejuvenated ; and as we 
struck camp, were right merry between our- 
selves over the foolish nervousness of the 
night. There was still a raw northwest wind, 
but the clouds soon broke, and when, at half- 
past six, we again pushed out into the swift- 
flowing stream, it was evident that the day 
would be bright and comfortably cool. 

We had some splendid vistas of bluff-girt 
scenery this morning, especially near Merri- 
mac, where some of the elevations are the 
highest along the river. There are a score 
of houses at Merrimac, which is the point 
where the Chicago and Northwestern railway ' 
crosses, over an immense iron bridge 1736 
feet long, spanning two broad channels and 



The Last of the Sacs. 249 

the sand island which divides them. The 
village is on a rolling plateau some fifty feet 
above the water level, on the northern side. 
Climbing up to the bridge-tender's house, that 
one-armed veteran of the spans, whose service 
here is as old as the bridge, told me that it 
was seldom indeed the river highway was 
used in these days. " The railroads kill this 
here water business," he said. 

I found the tender to be something of a 
philosopher. Most bridge-tenders and fish- 
ermen, and others who pursue lonely occupa- 
tions and have much spare time on their 
hands, are philosophers. That their specula- 
tions are sometimes cloudy does not detract 
from their local reputation of being deep 
thinkers. The Merrimac tender was given 
to geology, I found, and some of his ideas 
concerning the origin of the bluffs and the 
glacial streaks, and all that sort of thing, 
would create marked attention in any scien- 
tific journal. He had some original notions, 
too, about the habits of the stream above 
which he had almost hourly walked, day and 
night, the seasons round, for sixteen long 
years. The ice invariably commenced to 
form on the bottom of the river, he stoutly 
claimed, and then rose to the surface, — the 
ingenious reason given for this remarkable 



250 Historic Waterways. 

phenomenon being that the underlying sand 
was colder than the water. These and other 
novel results of his observation, our philo- 
sophical friend good-humoredly communi- 
cated, together with scraps of local tradition 
regarding the Black Hawk War, and lurid 
tales of the old lumber-raft days. At last, 
however, his hour came for walking the spans, 
and we descended to our boat. As we shot 
into the main channel, far above us a red flag 
fluttered from the draw, and we knew it to be 
the parting salute of the grizzled sentinel. 

At the head of an island half a mile below, 
it is said there are the remains of an Indian 
fort. We landed with some difficulty, for the 
current sweeps by its wooded shore with par- 
ticular zest. Our examination of the locality, 
however, revealed no other earth lines than 
might have been formed by a rushing flood. 
But as a reward for our endeavors, we found 
the lobelia cardinalis in wonderful profusion, 
mingled in striking contrast of color with 
the iron and sneeze weeds, and the common 
spurge. The prickly ash, with its little scarlet 
berry, was common upon this as upon other 
islands, and the elms were of remarkable 
size. 

We were struck, as we passed along where 
the river chanced to wash the feet of steepy 



The Last of the Sacs, 251 

slopes, with the peculiar ridging of the turf. 
The water having undermined these banks, 
the friable soil upon their shoulders had slid, 
regularly breaking the sod into long hori- 
zontal strips a foot or two wide, the white 
sand gleaming between the rows of rusty 
green. Sometimes the shores were thus 
striped with zebra-like regularity for miles 
together, presenting a very singular and arti- 
ficial appearance. 

Prominent features of the morning's voy- 
age, also, were deep bowlder-strewn and often 
heavily wooded ravines running down from 
the bluffs. Although perfectly dry at this 
season, it can be seen that they are the beds 
of angry torrents in the spring, and many a 
poor farmer's field is deeply cut with such 
gulches, which rapidly grow in this light soil 
as the years go on. We stopped at one such 
farm, and walked up the great breach to very 
near the house, up to which we clambered, 
over rocks and through sand-burrs and thick- 
ets, being met at the gate by a noisy dog, that 
appeared to be suspicious of strangers who 
approached his master's castle by means of 
the covered way. The farmer's wife, as she 
supplied us with exquisite dairy products, 
said that the metes and bounds of their little 
domain were continually changing ; four acres 



252 Historic Waterways. 

of their best meadow had been washed out 
within two years, their wood-lot was being 
gradually undermined, and the ravine was 
eating into their ploughed land with the per- 
sistence of a cancer. On the other hand, her 
sister's acres, down the river a mile or two, 
on the other bank, were growing in extent. 
However, she thought their " luck would 
change one of these seasons," and the river 
swish off upon another tangent. 

Upon returning by the gully, we found that 
its sunny, sloping walls, where not wooded 
with willows and oak saplings, were resplen- 
dent with floral treasures, chief among them 
being the gerardia, golden-rod in several vari- 
eties, tall white asters, a blue lobelia, and ver- 
vain, while the seeds of the Oswego tea, prairie 
clover, bed-straw, and wild roses were in 
all the glory of ripeness. There was a broad, 
pebbly beach at the base of the torrent's 
bed, thick-grown with yearling willows. A 
stranded pine-log, white with age and worn 
smooth by a generation of storms, lay firmly 
imbedded among the shingle. The temper- 
ature was still low enough to induce us to 
court the sunshine, and, leaning against this 
hoary castaway from the far North, we sat 
for a while and basked in the radiant smiles 
of Sol. 



The Last of the Sacs. 253 

Prairie dii Sac, thirty miles below Portage, 
is historically noted as the site for several 
generations of the chief village of the Sac In- 
dians. Some of the earliest canoeists over this 
water-route, in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, describe the aboriginal community 
in some detail. The dilapidated white vil- 
lage of to-day numbers but four hundred and 
fifty inhabitants, — about one-fourth of the 
population assigned to the old red-skin town. 
The "prairie " is an oak-opening plateau, more 
or less fertile, at the base of the northern range 
of bluffs, which here takes a sudden sweep 
inland for three or four miles. 

The Sacs had deserted this basin plain by 
the close of the eighteenth century, and taken 
up their chief quarters in the neighborhood 
of Rock Island, near the mouth of Rock 
River, in close proximity to their allies, the 
Foxes, who now kept watch and ward over 
the west bank of the Mississippi. 

By a strange fatality it chanced that in the 
last days of July, 1832, the deluded Sac 
leader. Black Hawk, flying from the wrath of 
the Illinois and Wisconsin militiamen, under 
Henry and Dodge, chose this seat of the 
ancient power of his tribe to be one of the 
scenes of that fearful tragedy which proved 
the death-blow to Sac ambition. Black Hawk, 



254 Historic Waterways, 

after long hiding in the morasses of the Rock 
above Lake Koshkonong, suddenly flew from 
cover, hoping to cross the Wisconsin River 
at Prairie du Sac, and by plunging across the 
mountainous country over a trail known to 
the Winnebagoes, who played fast and loose 
with him as with the whites, to get beyond the 
Mississippi in quiet, as he had been originally 
ordered to do. His retreat was discovered when 
but a day old ; and the militiamen hurried on 
through the Jefferson swamps and the forests 
of the Four Lake country, harrying the fugi- 
tives in the rear. At the summit of the Wis- 
consin Heights, on the south bank, overlooking 
this old Sac plain on the north, Black Hawk 
and his rear-guard stood firm, to allow the 
women and children and the majority of his 
band of two thousand to cross the interven- 
ing bottoms and the island-strewn river. 
The unfortunate leader sat upon a white horse 
on the summit of the peak now called by his 
name, and shouted directions to his handful 
of braves. The movements of the latter were 
well executed, and Black Hawk showed good 
generalship ; but the militiamen were also 
well handled, and had superior supplies of 
ammunition, so when darkness fell the fated 
ravine and the wooded bottoms below were 
strewn with Indian bodies, and victory was 



The Last of the Sacs, 255 

with the whites. During the night the surviv- 
ing fugitives, now ragged, foot-sore, and starv- 
ing, crossed the river by swimming. A party 
of fifty or so, chiefly non-combatants, made a 
raft, and floated down the Wisconsin, to be 
slaughtered near its mouth by a detail of 
regulars and Winnebagoes from Prairie du 
Chien ; but the mass of the party flying west- 
ward in hot haste over the prairie of the Sacs, 
headed for the Mississippi. They lined their 
rugged path with the dead and dying victims 
of starvation and despair, and a sorry lot these 
people were when the Bad Axe was finally 
reached, and the united army of regulars and 
militiamen under Atkinson, Henry, and Dodge, 
overtook them. The " battle " there was a 
slaughter of weaklings. But few escaped 
across the great river, and the bloodthirsty 
Sioux despatched nearly all of those. 

Black Hawk was surrendered by the servile 
Winnebagoes, and after being exhibited in the 
Eastern cities, he was turned over to the be- 
sotted Keokuk for safe-keeping. He died, this 
last of the Sacs, poor, foolish old man, a few 
years later ; and his bones, stolen for an Iowa 
museum, were cremated twenty years after 
in a fire which destroyed that institution. A 
sad history is that of this once famous people. 
We glory over the stately progress of the white 



256 Historic Waterways. 

man's civilization, but if we venture to examine 
with care the paths of that progress, we find 
our imperial chariot to be as the car of 
Juggernaut. 

The view from the house verandas which 
overhang the high bank at Prairie du Sac, is 
superb. Eastward a half mile away, the 
grand, corrugated bluffs of Black Hawk and 
the Sugar Loaf tower to a height of over 
three hundred feet above the river level ; 
while their lesser companions, heavily for- 
ested, continue the range, north and south, 
as far as the eye can reach. The river 
crosses the foreground with a majestic sweep, 
while for several miles to the west and south- 
west stretches the wooded plain, backed by 
a curved line of gloomy hills which com- 
plete the rim of the basin. 

A mile below, on the same plain, is Sauk 
City, a shabby town of about a thousand in- 
habitants. A spur track of the Chicago, Mil- 
waukee, and St. Paul railway runs up here from 
Mazomanie, crossing the river, which is nearly 
half a mile wide, on an iron bridge. A large 
and prosperous brewery appears to be the 
chief industry of the place. Slaughter-houses 
abut upon the stream, in the very centre of the 
village. These and the squalid back-door 
yards which run down to the bank do not 



The Last of the Sacs. 257 

make up an attractive picture to the canoeist. 
River towns differ very much in this respect. 
Some of them present a neat front to the 
water thoroughfare, with flower-gardens and 
well-kept yards and street-ends, while others 
regard the river as a sewer and the banks as 
a common dumping ground, giving the trav- 
eler by boat a view of filth, disorder, and 
general unsightliness which is highly repul- 
sive. I have often found, on landing at some 
villages of this latter class, that the dwellings 
and business blocks which, riverward, are 
sad spectacles of foulness and unthrift, have 
quite pretentious fronts along the land high- 
way which the townsfolk patronize. It is as 
if some fair dame, who prided herself on her 
manners and costume, had rags beneath 
her fine silks, and unwashed hands within her 
dainty gloves. This coming in at the back 
door of river towns reveals many a secret of 
sham. 

It was a fine run down to Arena ferry, 
thirteen miles below Sauk City. The skies 
had become leaden and the atmosphere gray, 
and the sparse, gnarled poplars on some of 
the storm-swept bluffs had a ghostly effect. 
Here and there, fires had blasted the moun- 
tainous slopes, and a light aspen growth was 
hastening to garb with vivid green the black- 
17 



258 Historic Waterways. 

ened ruins. But the general impression was 
that of dark, gloomy forests of oak, linden, 
maple, and elms, on both upland and bottom ; 
with now and then a noble pine cresting a 
shattered cliff. 

There were fitful gleams of sunshine, dur- 
ing which the temperature was as high as 
could be comfortably tolerated ; but the 
northwest wind swept sharply down through 
the ravines, and whenever the heavens be- 
came overcast, jackets were at once essential. 

The islands became more frequent, as we 
progressed. Many of them are singularly 
beautiful. The swirling current gradually 
undermines their bases, causing the trees 
to topple toward the flood, with many graceful 
effects of outline, particularly when viewed 
above the island head. And the colors, too, 
at this season, are charmingly variegated. 
The sapping of a tree's foundations brings early 
decay ; and the maples, especially, are thus 
early in the season gay with the autumnal 
tints of gold and wine and purple, objects of 
striking beauty for miles away. Under the 
arches of the toppling trees, and inside the 
lines of snags which mark the islet's former 
limits, the current goes swishing through, 
white with bubbles and dancing foam. Crouch- 
ing low, to escape the twigs, one can have 



The Last of the Sacs. 259 

enchanting rides beneath these bowers, and 
catch rare glimpses of the insulated flora on 
the swift-passing banks. The stately spikes 
of the cardinal lobelia fairly dazzle the eye 
with their gleaming color ; and great masses 
of brilliant yellow sneeze-weed and the deep 
purple of the iron-weed present a symphony 
which would delight a disciple of Whistler. 
Thus are the islands ever being destroyed and 
new ones formed. Those bottom lands, over 
there, where great forests are rooted, will 
have their turn yet, and the buffeted sand-bars 
of to-day given a restful chance to become 
bottoms. The game of shuttlecock and bat- 
tledoor has been going on in this dark and 
awesome gorge since Heaven knows when. 
Man's attempt to control its movements seem 
puny indeed. 

At six o'clock that evening we had arrived 
at the St. Paul railway bridge at Helena. 
The tender and his wife are a hospitable 
couple, and we engaged quarters in their cosy 
home at the southern end of the bridge. Mrs. 

P has a delightful flower-garden, which 

looks like an oasis in the wilderness of sand 
and bog thereabout. Twenty-three years ago, 
when these worthy people first took charge 
of the bridge, the earth for this walled-in 
beauty spot was imported by rail from a more 



26o Historic Waterways, 

fertile valley than the Wisconsin; and here 
the choicest of bulbs and plants are grown 
with rare floricultural skill, and the train- 
men all along the division are resplendent in 
button-hole bouquets, the year round, pro- 
ducts of the bridge-house bower at Helena. 

W and Mrs. P at once struck up an 

enthusiastic botanical friendship. 

Bridge houses are generally most forlorn 
specimens of railway architecture, and have 
a barricaded look, as though tramps were al- 
together too frequent along the route, and 
occasionally made trouble for the watchers of 
the ties. This one, originally forbidding 
enough, has been transformed into a winsome 
vine-clad home, gay with ivies, Madeira vines, 
and passion, moon, and trumpet flowers, cover- 
ing from view the professional dull green 
affected by ** the company's" boss painter. 
The made garden, to one side, was choking 
with a wealth of bedding plants and green- 
house rarities of every hue and shape of 
blossom and leaf. 

A dozen feet below the railroad level, 
spread wide morasses and sand patches, 
thick grown with swamp elms and willows. 
Down the track, a half mile to the south, 
Helena's fifty inhabitants are grouped in a 
dozen faded dwellings. Three miles west- 



The Last of the Sacs, 261 

ward, across the river, is the pretty and 
flourishing village of Spring Green. 

It is needless to say that in the isolated 
home of these lovers of flowers, we had 

comfortable quarters. W said that it 

was very much like putting up at Rudder 
Grange. 




CHAPTER III. 



A PANORAMIC VIEW. 



THE fog on the river was so thick, next 
morning, that objects four rods away 
were not visible. To navigate among the 
snags and shallows under such conditions 
was impossible. But W closely in- 
vestigated the garden while waiting for the 

mist to rise, and Mr. P entertained me 

with intelHgent reminiscences of his long 
experience here. It had been four years, 
he said, since he last swung the draw for a 
river craft. That was a small steamboat 
attempting to make the passage, on what 
was considered a good stage of water, from 
Portage to the mouth. She spent two weeks 
in passing from Arena to Lone Rock, a 
distance of twenty-two miles, and was finally 
abandoned on a sand-bank for the season. 
He doubted whether he would have occasion 
again to swing the great span. As for lum- 



A Panoramic Viezu. 263 

ber rafts, but three or four small ones had 
passed down this year, for the railroads were 
transporting the product of the great mills 
on the Upper Wisconsin, about as cheap as 
it could be driven down river and with far 
less risk of disaster. The days of river traffic 
were numbered, he declared, and the little 
towns that had so long been supported by the 
raftsmen, on their long and weary journey 
from the northern pineries to the Hannibal 
and St. Louis markets, were dying of star- 
vation. 

I questioned our host as to his opinion of 
the value of the Fox- Wisconsin river improve- 
ment. He was cautious at first, and claimed 
that the money appropriated had " done a great 
deal of good to the poor people along the line." 
Closer inquiry developed the fact that these 
poor people had been employed in building 
the wing dams, for which local contracts had 
been let. When his opinion of the value of 

these dams was sought, Mr. P • admitted 

that the general opinion along the river was, 
that they were *' all nonsense," as he put it. 
Contracts had been let to Tom, Dick, and 
Harry, in the river villages, who had made 
a show of work, in the absence of inspectors, 
by sinking bundles of twigs and covering 
them with sand. Stone that had been hauled 



264 Historic Waterways, 

to the banks, to weight the mattresses, had 
remained unused for so long that popular 
judgment awarded it to any man who was 
enterprising enough to cart it away ; thus 
was many a barn foundation hereabouts built 
out of government material. Sand-ballasted 
wing-dams built one season were washed out 
the next ; and so government money has 
been recklessly frittered away. Such sort of 
management is responsible for the loose mo- 
rality of the public concerning anything the 
general government has in hand. A man 
may steal from government with impunity, 
who would be socially ostracized for cheating 
his neighbor. There exists a popular senti- 
ment along this river, as upon its twin, the 
Fox, that government is bound to squander 
about so much money every year in one way 
or another, and that the denizens of these two 
valleys are entitled to their share of the plun- 
der. One honest captain on the Fox said to 
me, " If it wa'n't for this here appropriation, 
Wisconsin wouldn't get her proportion of the 
public money what each State is regularly 
entitled to ; so I think it 's necessary to keep 
this here scheme a-goin', for to get our dues ; 
of course the thing ain't much good, so far as 
what is claimed for it goes, but it keeps 
money movin' in these valleys and makes 



A Panoramic View, 265 

times easier, — and that 's what guvment 's 
for." The honest skipper would have been 
shocked, probably, if I had called him a 
socialist, for a few minutes after he was de- 
claiming right vigorously against Herr Most 
and the Chicago anarchists. 

It was half-past nine before the warmth of 
the sun's rays had dissipated the vapor, and 
we ventured to set forth. It proved to be an 
enchanting day in every respect. 

A mile or so below the bridge we came to 
the charming site, on the southern bank, at 
the base of a splendid limestone bluff, of the 
village of Old Helena, now a nameless clump 
of battered dwellings. There is a ferry here 
and a wooden toll-bridge in process of erec- 
tion. The naked clifif, rising sheer above the 
rapid current, was, early in this century, util- 
ized as a shot tower. There are lead mines 
some fifteen miles south, that were worked 
nearly fifty years before Wisconsin became 
even a Territory ; and hither the pigs were, as 
late as 1830, laboriously drawn by wagons, to 
be precipitated down a rude stone shaft built 
against this cliff, and thus converted into shot. 
Much of the lead used by the Indians and 
white trappers of the region came from the 
Helena tower, and its product was in great 
demand during the Black Hawk War in 1832. 



266 Historic Waterways, 

The remains of the shaft are still to be seen, 
although much overgrown with vines and 
trees. 

Old Helena, in the earlier shot-tower days, 
was one of the *' boom " towns of " the howl- 
ing West." But the boom soon collapsed, and 
it was a deserted village even at the time of 
the Black Hawk disturbance. After the bat- 
tle of Wisconsin Heights, opposite Prairie du 
Sac, the white army, now out of supplies, re- 
tired southwest to Blue Mound, the nearest 
lead diggings, for recuperation. Spending 
a few days there, they marched northwest to 
Helena. The logs and slabs which had been 
used in constructing the shanties here were 
converted into rafts, and upon them the Wis- 
consin was crossed, the operation consuming 
two days. A few miles north, Black Hawk's 
trail, trending westward to the Bad Axe, was 
reached, and soon after that came the final 
struggle. 

We found many groups of pines, this morn- 
ing, in the amphitheater between the bluffs, 
and under them the wintergreen berries in 
rich profusion. Some of the little pocket 
farms in these depressions are delightful bits 
of rugged landscape. In the fields of corn, 
now neatly shocked, the golden pumpkins 
seemed as if in imminent danger of rolling 



A Panoramic View, 267 

down hill. There are curious effects in 
architecture, where the barns and other 
outbuildings far overtop the dwellings, and 
have to be reached by flights of steps or 
angling paths. Yet here and there are pleas- 
ant, gently rolling fields, nearer the bank, and 
smooth, sugar-loaf mounds upon which cattle 
peacefully graze. The buckwheat patches are 
white with blossom. Now and then can just 
be distinguished the forms of men and women 
husking maize upon some fertile upland bench. 
And so goes on the day. Now, with pret- 
ty glimpses of rural life, often reminding one 
of Rhineland views, without the castles; then, 
swishing off through the heart of the bottoms 
for miles, shut in except from distant views of 
the hill-tops, and as excluded from humanity, 
in these vistas of sand and morass, as though 
traversing a wilderness ; anon, darting past 
deserted rocky slopes or through the dark 
shadow of beethng cliffs, and the gloomy 
forests which crown them. 

Lone Rock ferry is nearly fourteen miles 
below Helena bridge. As we came in view, 
the boat was landing a doctor's gig at the 
foot of a bold, naked bluff, on the southern 
bank. The doctor and the ferryman gave 
civil answers to our queries about distances, 
and expressed great astonishment when an- 



268 Historic Waterways, 

swered, in turn, that we were bound for the 
mouth of the river. " Mighty dull business," 
the doctor remarked, " traveling in that little 
cockle-shell ; I should think you 'd feel afraid, 
ma'am, on this big, lonesome river ; my wife 
don't dare look at a boat, and I always feel 
skittish coming over on the ferry." I assured 
him that canoeing was far from being a dull 

business, and W good-humoredly added 

that she had as yet seen nothing to be afraid 
of. The doctor laughed and said something, 
as he clicked up his bony nag, about " tastes 
differing, anyhow." And, the ferryman trudg- 
ing behind, — the smoke from his cabin 
chimney was rising above the tree-tops in 
a neighboring ravine, — the little cortege 
wound its way up the rough, angling road- 
way fashioned out of the face of the bluff, and 
soon vanished around a corner. Lone Rock 
village is a mile and a half inland to the 
south. 

Just below, the cliff overhangs the stream, 
its base having been worn into by centuries 
of ceaseless washing. On a narrow beach be- 
neath, a group of cows were chewing their 
cuds in an atmosphere of refreshing coolness. 
From the rocky roof above them hung ferns 
in many varieties, — maidenhair, the wood, 
the sensitive, and the bladder ; while in clefts 



A Panoramic View, 269 

and grottos, or amid great heaps of rock 
debris, hard by, there were generous masses 
of king fern, lobelia cardinalis, iron and sneeze 
weed, golden-rod, daisies, closed gentian, and 
eupatorium, in startling contrasts of vivid 
color. It being high noon, we stopped and 
landed at this bit of fairy land, ate our din- 
ner, and botanized. There was a tinge of 

triumphant scorn in W 's voice, when, 

emerging from a spring-head grotto, bearing 
in one arm a brilliant bouquet of wild flowers 
and in the other a mass of fern fronds, she 
cried, "■ To think of his calling canoeing a 
dull business ! " 

Richland City, on the northern bank, five 
miles down, is a hamlet of fifteen or twenty 
houses, some of them quite neat in appear- 
ance. Nestled in a grove of timber on a plain 
at the base of the bluffs, the village presents 
a quaint old-country appearance for a long 
distance up-stream. The St. Paul railway, 
which skirts the northern bank after crossing 
the Helena bridge, sends out a spur north- 
ward from Richland City, to Richland Center, 
the chief town in Richland county. 

Two miles below Richland City, we landed 
at the foot of an imposing blufi", which rises 
sharply for three hundred feet or m.ore from the 
water's edge. It is practically treeless on the 



270 Historic Waterways, 

river side. We ascended it through a steep 
gorge washed by a spring torrent. Strewn 
with bowlders and hung with bushes and an 
occasional thicket of elms and oaks, the path 
was rough but sure. From the heights above, 
the dark valley lay spread before us like a 
map. Ten miles away, to our left, a splash of 
white in a great field of green marked the 
location of Lone Rock village ; five miles to 
the right, a spire or two rising above the 
trees indicated where Muscoda lay far back 
from the river reaches ; while in front, two 
miles away, peaceful little Avoca was sunning 
its gray roofs on a gently rising ground. 
Between these settlements and the parallel 
ranges which hemmed in the panoramic view, 
lay a wide expanse of willow-grown sand- 
fields, forested morasses, and island meadows 
through which the many-channeled river cut 
its devious way. In the middle foreground, 
far below us, some cattle were being driven 
through a bushy marsh by boys and dogs. 
The cows looked the size of kittens to us at 
our great elevation, but such was the purity 
of the atmosphere that the shouts and yelps 
of the drivers rose with wonderful clearness, 
and the rustling of the brush was as if in an 
adjoining lot. The noise seemed so dispro- 
portioned to the size of the objects occasion- 



A Panoramic View, 271 

ins: it, that this acoustic effect was at first 
rather startling. 

The whitewashed cabin of a squatter and 
his few log outbuildings occupy a little basin 
to one side of the bluff- His cattle were 
ranging over the hillsides, attended by a colly. 
The family were rather neatly dressed, but 
there did not appear to be over an acre of 
land level enough for cultivation, and that was 
entirely devoted to Indian corn. It was some- 
thing of a mystery how this man could earn a 
living in his cooped-up mountain home. But 
the honest-looking fellow seemed quite con- 
tented, sitting in the shade of his woodpile 
smoking a corncob pipe, surrounded by a half 
dozen children. He cheerfully responded to 
my few queries, as we stopped at his well on 
the return to our boat. The good wife, a 
buxom woman with pretty blue eyes set in a 
smiling face, was peeling a pan of potatoes on 
the porch, near by, while one foot rocked a 
rude cradle ingeniously formed out of a bar- 
rel head and a lemon box. She seemed 

mightily pleased as W stroked the face 

of the chubby infant within, and made in- 
quiries as to the ages of the step-laddered 
brood ; and the father, too, fairly beamed with 
satisfaction as he placed his hands on the 
golden curls of his two oldest misses and 



272 Historic Waterways. 

proudly exhibited their little tricks of precoc- 
ity. There can be no poverty under such a 
roof. Millionnaires might well envy the peace- 
ful contentment of these hillside squatters. 

Down to Muscoda we followed the rocky 
and wood-crowned northern bank, along which 
the country highway is cut out. The swift 
current closely hugs it, and there was needed 
but slight exertion with the paddles to lead a 
sewing-machine agent, whom we found to be 
urging his horse into a vain attempt to dis- 
tance the canoe. As he seemed to court a 
race, we had determined not to be outdone, 
and were not. 

Orion, on the northern side, just above 
Muscoda, is a deserted town. It must have 
been a pretentious place at one time. There 
are a dozen empty business buildings, now 
tenanted by bats and spiders. On one shop 
front, a rotting sign displays the legend, 
" World's Exchange ; " there is also a " Globe 
Hotel," and the remains of a bank or two. 
Alders, lilacs, and gnarled apple-trees in many 
deserted clumps, tell where the houses once 
w^ere ; and the presence, among these ruins, of 
a family or two of squalid children only em- 
phasizes the dreary loneliness. Orion was 
once a "boom" town, they tell us, — an ex- 
pressive epitaph. 



A Panoramic View, 273 

A thin, outcropping substratum of sand- 
stone is noticeable in this section of the river. 
It undedies the sandy plains which abut the 
Wisconsin in the Muscoda region, and lines 
the bed of the stream ; near the banks, where 
there is but a slight depth of water, rapids 
are sometimes noticeable, the rocky bottom 
being now and then scaled off into a stairlike 
form, for the fall is here much sharper than 
customary. 

Because of an outlying shelf of this sand- 
stone, bordered by rapids, but covered with 
only a few inches of dead water, we had some 
difficulty in landing at Muscoda beach, on the 
southern shore. Some stout poling and lift- 
ing were essential before reaching land. Mus- 
coda was originally situated on the bank, 
which rises gently from the water; but as the 
river trade fell off, the village drifted up 
nearer the bluff, a mile south over the plain, 
in order to avoid the spring floods. There is 
a toll-bridge here and a large brewery, with 
extensive cattle-sheds strung along the shore. 
A few scattering houses connect these estab- 
lishments with the sleepy but neat little ham- 
let of some five hundred inhabitants. After a 
brisk walk up town, in the fading sunlight, 
which cast a dazzling glimmer on the 
whitened dunes and heightened the size of 
18 



2 74 Historic Waterways, 

the dwarfed herbage, we returned to the canoe, 
and cast off to seek camping quarters for the 
night, down-stream. 

A mile below, on the opposite bank, a 
large straw-stack by the side of a small farm- 
house attracted our attention. We stopped 
to investigate. There was a good growth of 
trees upon a gentle slope, a few rods from shore, 
and a beach well strewn with drift-wood. The 
farmer who greeted us was pleasant-spoken, 
and readily gave us permission to pitch our tent 
in the copse and partake freely of his straw. 

Now more accustomed to the river's ways, 
we keenly enjoyed our supper, seated around 
our little camp-fire in the early dark. We 
had occasional glimpses of the lights in Mus- 
coda, through the swaying trees on the bot- 
toms to the south ; an owl, on a neighboring 
island, incessantly barked like a terrier ; the 
whippoorwills were sounding their mournful 
notes from over the gliding river, and now 
and then a hoarse grunt or querulous squeal 
in the wood-lot behind us gave notice that we 
were quartered in a hog pasture. Soon the 
moon came out and brilliantly lit the opens, 
— the glistening river, the stretches of white 
sand, the farmer's fields, — and intensified the 
sepulchral shadows of the lofty bluffs which 
overhang the scene. 



CHAPTER IV. 



FLOATING THROUGH FAIRYLAND. 



T TNDISTURBED by hogs or river tramps, 
^^ we slept soundly until seven, the follow- 
ing morning. There was a heavy fog again, 
but by the time we had leisurely eaten our 
breakfast, struck camp, and had a pleasant 
chat with our farmer host and his '' hired 
man," who had come down to the bank to 
make us a call, the mists had rolled away be- 
fore the advances of the sun. 

At half past ten we were at Port Andrew, 
eight miles below camp on the north shore. 
The Port, or what is left of it, lies stretched 
along a narrow bench of sand, based with 
rock, some forty feet above the water, with 
a high, naked bluff backing it to the north. 
There is barely room for the buildings, on 
either side of its one avenue paralleling the 
river ; this street is the country road, which 
skirts the bank, connecting the village with 



276 Historic Waterways, 

the sparse settlements, east and west. In the 
old rafting days, the Port was a stopping-place 
for the lumber pilots. There being neither 
rafts nor pilots, nowadays, there is no business 
for the Port, except what few dollars may be 
picked up from the hunters who frequent this 
place each fall, searching for woodcock. But 
even the woodcocking industry has been over- 
done here, and two sportsmen whom we met 
on the beach declared that there were not 
enough birds remaining to pay for the trouble 
of getting here. For, indeed, Port Andrew 
is quite off the paths of modern civilization. 
There is practically no communication with 
the country over the bluffs, northward ; and 
Blue River, the nearest railway station, to 
which there is a tri-weekly mail, is four miles 
southward, over the bottoms, with an uncer- 
tain ferryage between. There are less than 
fifty human beings in Port Andrew now, but 
double that number of dogs, the latter mostly 
of the pointer breed, kept for the benefit of 
huntsmen. 

We climbed the bank and went over to the 
post-office and general store. It seems to be 
the only business establishment left alive in 
the hamlet ; although there are a dozen de- 
serted buildings which were stores in the long 
ago, but are now ghostly wrecks, open to wind 



Floating through Fairyland, 277 

and weather on every side, and, with sunken 
ridge-poles, waiting for the first good wind- 
storm to furnish an excuse for a general col- 
lapse. A sleepy, greasy-looking lad, whose 
originally white shirt-front was sadly stained 
with water-melon juice, had charge of the 
meager concern. He said that the farmers 
north of the bluffs traded in towns more ac- 
cessible than this, and that south of the 
stream, Blue River, being a railroad place, 
was "knockin' the spots off'n the Port." 
Ten years ago, he had heard his " pa " say 
the Port was "a likely place," but it ''ain't 
much shakes now." 

But there is a certain quaintness about 
these ruins of Port Andrew that is quite 
attractive. A deep ravine, cut through the 
shale-rock, comes winding down from a pass 
among the bluffs, severing the hamlet in twain. 
Over it there is sprung a high-arched, rough 
stone bridge, with crenelled walls, quite as 
artistic in its way as may be found in pictures 
of ancient English brook-crossings. On the 
summit of a rising-ground beyond, stands 
the solitary, whitened skeleton of a once spa- 
cious inn, a broad double-decked veranda 
stretching across its river front, and hitching- 
posts and drinking-trough now almost lost to 
view in a jungle of docks and sand-burrs. 



278 Historic Waterways, 

The cracks in the rotten veranda floors are 
lined with grass ; the once broad highway is 
now reduced to an unfrequented trail through 
the yielding sand, which is elsewhere hid 
under a flowery mantle made up of delicate, 
fringed blossoms of pinkish purple, called by 
the natives '' Pike's weed," and the rich yellow 
and pale gold of the familiar " butter and eggs." 
The peculiar effect of color, outline, and per- 
spective, that hazy August day, was indeed 
charming. But we were called from our rapt 
contemplation of the picture, by the assem- 
blage around us of half the population of Port 
Andrew, led by the young postmaster and 
accompanied by a drove of playful hounds. 
The impression had somehow got abroad that 
we had come to prospect for an iron mine, in 
the bed of the old ravine, and there was a 
general desire to see how the thing was done. 
The popular disappointment was evidently 
great, when we descended from our perch on 
the old bridge wall, and returned to the little 
vessel on the beach, which had meanwhile 
been closely overhauled by a knot of inquisi- 
tive urchins. A part of the crowd followed 
us down, plying innocent questions by the 
score, while on the summit of the bank 
above stood a watchful group of women and 
girls, some in huge sun-bonnets, others with 



Floating through Fairyland. 2 79 

aprons thrown over their heads. There was 
a general waving of hats and aprons from the 
shore, as we shot off into the current again, 
and our " Good-by ! " was answered by a 
cheery chorus. It is evident that Port An- 
drew does not have many exciting episodes in 
her aimless, far-away life. 

Flocks of crows were seen to-day, winging 
their funereal flight from shore to shore, and 
uttering dismal croaks. The islands pre- 
sented a more luxurious flora than we had 
yet seen ; the marsh grass upon them was 
rank and tall, the overhanging trees sumptu- 
ously vine-clad, the autumn tints deeper and 
richer than before, the banks glowing with car- 
dinal and yellow and purple ; while on the sandy 
shores we saw loosestrife, white asters, the 
sensitive plant, golden-rod, and button-bush. 
Blue herons drifted through the air on their 
wide-spread wings, heads curved back upon 
their shoulders, and legs hanging straight 
down, to settle at last upon barren sand-spits, 
and stand in silent contemplation of some 
pool of dead water where perhaps a stray fish 
might reward their watchfulness. Solitary 
kingfishers kept their vigils on the numerous 
snags. Now and then a turtle shuffled from 
his perch and went tumbling with a loud 
splash into his favorite watering-place. 



28o Historic Waterways, 

Although yet too early for Indian summer, 
the day became, by noon, very like those 
which are the delight of a protracted north- 
western autumn. A golden haze threw a 
mystic veil over the landscape ; distant shore 
lines were obliterated, sand and sky and 
water at times merged in an indistinct blur, 
and distances were deceptive. Now and then 
the vistas of white sand-fields would appar- 
ently stretch on to infinity. Again, the river 
would seem wholly girt with cliffs and we in 
the bottom of a huge mountain basin, from 
which egress was impossible ; or the stream 
would for a time appear a boundless lake. 
The islands ahead were as if floating in space, 
and there were weird reflections of far-away 
objects in the waters near us. While these 
singular effects lasted we trimmed our bark to 
the swift-gliding current, and floated along 
through fairy-land, unwilling to break the 
charm by disturbing the mirrored surface of 
the flood. 

Soon after the dinner hour we came in sight 
of the Boscobel toll-bridge, — an ugly, clumsy 
structure, housed-in like a tunnel, and as dark 
as a pocket. I was never quite able to under- 
stand why some bridge-makers should cover 
their structures in this fashion, and others, in 
the same locality, leave them open to wind and 



Floating through Fairyland, 281 

weather. So far as my unexpert observation 
goes, covered bridges are no more durable 
than the open, and they are certainly less 
cheerful and comely. A chill always comes 
over me as I enter one of these damp and 
gloomy hollow-ways ; and the thought of how 
well adapted they are to the purposes of the 
thug or the footpad is not a particularly pleas- 
ant one for the lonely traveler by night. A 
dead little river hamlet, now in abject ruins, 
— Manhattan by name, — occupies the rug- 
ged bank at the north end of the long bridge ; 
while southward, Boscobel is out of sight, a 
mile and a half inland, across the bottoms. 
The bluff overtopping Manhattan is a quarry 
of excellent hard sandstone, and a half dozen 
men were dressing blocks for shipment, on 
the rocky shore above us. They and their 
families constitute Manhattan. 

Eight miles down river, also on the north 
bank, is Boydtown. There are two houses 
there, in a sandy glen at the base of a group 
of heavily wooded foot-hills. At one of the 
dwellings — a neat, slate-colored cottage — we 
found a cheery, black-eyed woman sitting on 
the porch with a brood of five happy children 
playing about her. As she hurried away 
to get the butter and milk which we had 
asked for, she apologized for being seen to 



282 Historic Waterways, 

enjoy this unwonted leisure, apparently not 
desirous that we should suppose her to be any 
other than the hard-working little body which 
her hands and driving manner proclaimed her 
to be. When she returned with our supplies 
she said that they had " got through thrash- 
in', " the day before, and she was enjoying the 
luxury of a rest preparatory to an accumulated 
churning. I looked incredulously at the sandy 
waste in which this little home was planted, 
and the good woman explained that their farm 
lay farther back, on fair soil, although the pres- 
ent dry season had not been the best for crops. 
Her brown-faced boy of ten and two little 
girls of about eight — the laughing faces and 
crow-black curls of the latter hid under im- 
mense flapping sun-bonnets — accompanied 
us to the bayou by which we had approached 
Boydtown. They had a gay, unrestrained 
manner that was quite captivating, and we 
were glad to have them row alongside of us 
for a way down-stream in the unwieldy family 
punt, the lad handling the crude oars and the 
girls huddled together on the stern seat, cov- 
ered by their great sun-bonnet flaps, as with a 
cape. They were " goin' grapein'," they said ; 
and at an island where the vines hung dark 
with purple clusters, they piped " Good-by, 
you uns ! " in tittering unison. 



Floating through Fa iryland. 283 

By this time, the weather had changed. 
The haze had lifted. The sky had quickly 
become overcast with leaden rainclouds, and 
an occasional big drop gave warning of an 
approaching storm. A few miles below Boyd- 
town, we stopped to replenish our canteen at 
the St. Paul railway's fine iron bridge, the 
last crossing on that line between Milwaukee 
and Prairie du Chien. On the southern end 
of the bridge is Woodman ; on the northern 
bank, the tender's house. As we were in 
the northern channel, it was impracticable to 
reach the village, separated from us by wide 
islands and long stretches of swamp and for- 
est, except by walking the bridge and the 
mile or two of trestle-work approaches to the 
south. As for the bridge-house, there chanced 
to be no spare quarters for us there. So we 
voted to trust to fortune and push on, al- 
though the tender's wife, a pleasant, English- 
faced woman, with black, sparkling eyes and 
a hospitable smile, was much exercised in 
spirit, and thought we were running some 
hazard of a wetting. 

The skies lightened for a time, and then 
there came rolling up from over the range to 
the southwest great jagged rifts of black 
clouds, ugly " thunder heads," which seemed 
to presage a deluge. Below them, veiling the 



284 Historic Waterways, 

tallest peaks, tossed and sped the light-footed 
couriers of the wind, and we saw the dark- 
green bosom of the upper forests heave with 
the emotions of the air, while the rushing 
stream below flowed on unruffled. The river 
is here united in one broad channel. At the 
first evidence of a blow, we hurried across to 
the windward bank. We were landing at the 
swampy, timber-strewn base of a precipitous 
cliff as the wind passed over the valley, and 
had just completed our preparations for shel- 
ter when the rain began to come in blinding 
sheets. 

The possibility of having to spend the 
night under the sepulchral arches of this for- 
ested morass was not pleasant to contem- 
plate. The storm abated, however, within 
half an hour, and we were then able to dis- 
tinguish a large white house apparently set 
back in an open field a half mile or more 
from the opposite shore. 

Re-embarking, we headed that way, and 
found a wood-fringed stream several rods 
wide, pouring a vigorous flood into the Wis- 
consin, from the north. Our map showed it 
to be the Kickapoo, an old-time logging river, 
and the house must be an outlying member 
of the small railroad village of Wauzeka. A 
consultation was held on board, at the mouth 



Floating through Fairyland. 2S5 

of the Kickapoo. On the Wisconsin not a 
house was to be seen, as far as the eye could 
reach, and wide stretches of swamp and 
wooded bog appeared to line both its banks. 
The prospect of paddUng up the mad little 
Kickapoo for a mile to Wauzeka was dis- 
piriting, but we decided to do it ; for night 
was coming on, our tent, even could we find 
a good camping ground in this marshy wilder- 
ness, was disposed to be leaky, and a steady 
drizzle continued to sound a muffled tattoo 
on our rubber coats. A voluble fisherman, 
caught out in the rain like ourselves, came 
swinging into the tributary, with his cranky 
punt, just as we were setting our paddles for 
a vigorous pull up-stream. We had his com- 
pany, side by side, till we reached the St. Paul 
railway trestle, and beached at the foot of a 
deserted stave mill, in whose innermost re- 
cesses we deposited our traps. Guided by 
the village shoemaker's boy, who had been 
playing by the river side, we started up the 
track to find the hotel, nearly a half mile 
away. 

It is a quiet, comfortable, old-fashioned lit- 
tle inn, this hostelry at Wauzeka. The land- 
lord greeted his storm-bound guests with 
polite urbanity, and with none of that inquisi- 
tiveness so common in rural hosts. At sup- 



286 Historic Waterways, 

per, we met the village philosopher, a quaint, 
lone old man who has an opinion of his own 
upon most human subjects, and more than 
dares to voice it, — insists, in fact, on having 
it known of all men. A young commercial 
traveler, the only other patron of the estab- 
lishment, sadly guyed our philosophical mess- 
mate by securing his verdict on a wide range 
of topics, from the latest league game to ab- 
struse questions of theology. The philoso- 
pher bit, and the drummer was in high feather 
as he crinkled the corners of his mouth be- 
hind his huge moustache, and looked slyly 
around for encouragement that was not 
offered. 

Wauzeka is, in one respect, like too many 
other country villages. Three saloons dis- 
figure the main street, and in front of them 
are little knots of noisy loafers, in the eve- 
ning, filling up the rickety, variously graded 
sidewalk to the gutter, and necessitating the 
running of a loathsome gauntlet to those who 
may wish to pass that way. The boy who 
can grow up in such an atmosphere, unpol- 
luted, must be of rare material, or his parents 
exceptionally judicious. There are few large 
cities where one can see the liquor traf- 
fic carried on with such disgusting boldness 
as in hamlets like this, where screenless, 



Floating through Fairyland. 287 

open-doored saloons of a vile character jostle 
trading shops and dwellings, and monopolize 
the footway, making of the business street a 
place which women may abhor at any hour, 
and must necessarily avoid after sunset. 
With a local-option law, that but awaits a ma- 
jority vote to be operative in such communi- 
ties, it is a strange commentary on the quality 
of our nineteenth-century civilization that the 
dissolute few should still, as of old, be able to 
persistently hold the whip-hand over the vir- 
tuous but timid many. 

Elsewhere in Wauzeka, there are many 
pretty grass-grown lanes ; some substantial 
cottages ; a prosperous creamery, employing 
the service of the especial pride of the village, 
a six-inch spouting well, driven for three hun- 
dred feet to the underlying stratum of lime- 
rock ; a saw-mill or two, which are worked 
spasmodically, according to the log-driving 
stage in the Kickapoo, and some pleasant, 
accommodating people, who appear to be quite 
contented with their lot in life. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 

THERE was fog on the river in the 
morning. Across the broad expanse of 
field and ledge which separates Wauzeka from 
the Wisconsin, we could see the great white 
mass of vapor, fifty feet thick, resting on the 
broad channel like a dense coverlid of down. 
Soon after seven o'clock, the cloud lifted by 
degrees, and then broke into ragged segments, 
which settled sluggishly for a while on the 
tops of the southern line of bluffs and screened 
their dark amphitheaters from view, till at last 
dissipated into thin air. 

We were off at eight o'clock, fifteen or 
twenty men coming down to the railway- 
bridge to watch the operation. One of them 
helped us materially with our bundles, while 
the rest sat in a row along the trestle, dangling 
their feet through the spaces between the 
stringers, and gazing at us as though we were 



The Discovery of the Mississippi, 289 

a circus company on the move. A drizzle set 
in, just as we pushed from the bank, and we 
descended the Kickapoo under much the 
same conditions of atmosphere as those we 
had experienced in pulHng against its swirl- 
ing tide the evening before. 

But by nine o'clock the storm was over, and 
we had, for a time, a calm, quiet journey, a 
gray light which harmonized well with the 
wildly picturesque scenery, and a fresh west 
breeze which helped us on our way. We 
were now but twenty miles from the mouth. 
The parallel ranges of bluff come nearer 
together, until they are not much over a mile 
apart, and the stream, now broader, swifter, 
and deeper, is less encumbered with islands. 
Upon the peaty banks are the tall white spikes 
of the curious turtlehead, occasional masses 
of balsam-apple vines, the gleaming lobelia 
cardinalis, yellow honeysuckles just going out 
of blossom, and acres of the golden sneeze- 
weed, which deserves a better name. 

At Wright's Ferry, ten miles below, there 
are domiciled two German families, and on the 
shore is a saw-mill which is operated in the 
spring, to work up the logs which farmers 
bring down from the gloomy mountains which 
back the scene. 

Bridgeport, four miles farther, — still on the 
19 



290 Historic Waterways. 

northern side, — is chiefly a clump of little 
red railway buildings set up on a high bench 
carved from the face of the bluff, their fronts 
resting on the road-bed and their rears on 
high scaffolding. A few big bowlders rolling 
down from the cliffs would topple Bridgeport 
over into the river. There is a covered coun- 
try toll-bridge here, and the industrial interest 
of the Liliputian community is quarrying. It 
is the last hamlet on the river. 

A mist again formed, casting a blue tinge 
over the peaks and giving them a far distant 
aspect ; dark clouds now and then lowered 
and rolled through the upper ravines, reflect- 
ing their inky hue upon the surface of the 
deep, gliding river. The bluffs, which had 
for many miles closely abutted the stream, at 
last gradually swept away to the north and 
south, to become part of the great wall which 
forms the eastern bulwark of the Upper Mis- 
sissippi. At their base spreads a broad, flat 
plain, fringed with boggy woods and sandy 
meadows, the delta of the Wisconsin, which, 
below the Lowertown bridge of the Burling- 
ton and Northern railway, is cut up into flood- 
washed willow islands, flanked by a wide 
stretch of shifting sand-bars black with 
tangled roots and stranded logs, the debris of 
many a spring-time freshet. 



The Discovery of the Mississippi. 291 

It was about half-past twelve o'clock when we 
came to the junction of the Wisconsin and the 
Mississippi. Upon a willow-grown sand-reef 
edging the swamp, which extends northward 
for five miles to the quaint, ancient little city 
of Prairie du Chien, a large barge lies stranded. 
A lone fisherman sat upon its bulwark rail, 
which overhangs the rushing waters as they 
here commingle. We landed with something 
akin to reverence, for this must have been 
about the place where Joliet and Marquette, 
two hundred and fourteen years ago, gazed 
with rapture upon the mighty Mississippi, 
which they had at last discovered, after so 
many thousands of miles of arduous journeying 
through a savage-haunted wilderness. And 
indeed it is an imposing sight. To the west, 
two miles away, rise the wooded peaks on 
the Iowa side of the great river. Northward 
there are pretty glimpses of cliffs and rocky 
beaches through openings in the heavy growth 
which covers the islands of the upper stream. 
Southward is a long vista of curving hills and 
glinting water shut in by the converging 
ranges. Eastward stretches the green delta 
of the Wisconsin, flanked by those imposing 
bluffs, between whose bases for two centu- 
ries has flowed a curious throng of human- 
ity, savage and civilized, on errands sacred 



292 Historic Waterways. 

and profane, representing many clashing na- 
tionalities. 

The rain descended in a gentle shower as I 
was lighting a fire on which to cook our last 

canoeing meal of the season ; and W 

held an umbrella over the already damp kind- 
ling in order to give it a chance. We no doubt 
made a comical picture as we crouched to- 
gether beneath this shelter, jointly trying to 
fan the sparks into a flame, for the fisherman, 
who had been heretofore speechless, and ap- 
parently rapt in his occupation, burst out into 
a hearty laugh. When we turned to look at 
him he hid his face under his upturned coat- 
collar, and giggled to himself like a school- 
girl. He was a jolly dog, this fisherman, and 
after we had presented him with a cup of 
coffee and what solids we could spare from 
our now meager store, he warmed into a very 
communicative mood, and gave us much de- 
tailed, though rather highly colored, informa- 
tion about the locality, especially as to its 
natural features. 

The rain had ceased by the time dinner was 
over ; so we bade farewell to the happy fisher- 
man and the presiding deities of the Wiscon- 
sin, and pulled up the giant Mississippi to 
Prairie du Chien, stopping on our way to visit 
an out-of-the-way bayou, botanically famous, 



The Discovery of the Mississippi, 293 

where flourishes the rare nelumbium luteum, 
— America's nearest approach to the lotus of 
the Nile. 

And thus was accomplished the season's 
stint of six hundred miles of canoeing upon 
the Historic Waterways of Illinois and 
Wisconsin. 



INDEX. 



Algoma, 182, 186. 

Allouez, Father Claude, 176, 22S, 

229. 
American Fur Co., 145. 
Anderson, Maj. Robert, U.S.A., 19. 
Antoinette, Marie, Queen of 

France, 224. 
Appleton, Wis., 23, 27, 185, 202- 

207, 209. 
Arena Ferry, Wis., 27, 257, 262. 
Arndt, Judge John P., 158. 
Astor, John Jacob, 145, 232. 
Atkinson, Gen. Henry, U. S. A., 

19. 255. i 

Avoca, Wis., 270. 

Bad Axe, battle of, 255, 266. 

Baraboo River, 24it \ 

Barth, Laurent, 143. j 

Beloit, Wis. , 20, 26, 65. | 

Berlin, Wis., 21, 22, 27, 164, 173- ' 
175. i77» 240. I 

Black Hawk War, 18, 19, 87, 119, : 
250. 253-255, 266. 

Black Hawk Mountain, 256. 

Black River Falls, Wis., 200. 

Black Wolf Point, Lake Winne- 
bago, 191. 

Blue Mound, Wis., 266. 

Blue River Village, Wis., 276. 

Boscobel, Wis., 27, 2S0, 281. 

"Bourbon, The American." See I 
Williams, Eleazar. 



Boydtown, Wis., 27, 281, 282. 
Bridgeport, Wis., 27, 289, 290. 
Buffalo Lake, 22, 160-162, 168, 

173- 
Butte des Morts, Lake Grand, 161, 

181-183, 199- 
Butte des Morts, Lake Petit, 199, 

201, 202. 
Butte des Morts Village, 183-1S1;, 

1 88. 
Butterfield, Consul W., cifed, 176. 
Byron, 111., 19, 26, S2-85. 

Canoeing, pleasures of, 15, 16. 
Canoeists, suggestions to, 23-26. 
Canoes, styles of, 15, 16. 
Carbon Cliff, 111., 138, 139. 
Catfish River, Wis., 18, 31-59. 
Champche Keriwinke, Winnebago 

princess, 200, 201. 
Champlain, Governor of Quebec, 

i7Sj 230. 
Cherry River, 80. 
Chicago, Burlington, and Northern 

Ry., 290. 
Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy 

Ry-. 137-139- 

Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul 
Ry., 76, 82, 178, 186, 256, 259- 
265, 269, 283, 285. 

Chicago and Northwestern Ry., 
65, 248-250. 

Cleveland, 111., 137. 



296 



Index. 



Coloma, 111., 26, 138-140. 
Como, 111., 26, 109-111. 
Crooks, Ramsay, 232. 

Dablon, Father Claude, 229. 
Dakotah Indians. See Sioux and 

Winnebagoes. 
Davis, Jefferson, 19, 145, 146. 
Dekorra, Wis., 242-245. 
De Korra, early fur trader, igg, 200. 
Depere, Wis., 206, 225, 22S, 229. 
Dixon, III., 18, 20, 26, 87, 93, 94, 

97-101, 106-108. 
Dodge, Maj. Henry, 253, 255. 
Doty's Island, Wis., 195-201. 
Dunkirk, Wis., 52, 53. 

Erie, 111., 26, 124-136. 
Eureka, Wis., 178. 

First Lake, 40, 43-45. 
Fond du Lac, Wis., 191. 
Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien, 

Wis.), 145. 
Fort Howard, Wis., 145, 228-234. 
Fort Winnebago (Portage, Wis.), 

144-146. 
FourLakecountry,Wis.,i8, 33, 254. 
Four Legs, Winnebago chief, 200, 

201. 
Fox Indians (j^^, also, Sacs), 176, 

196-199. 
Fox River, Wis., 17, 21-23, 26, 

141-234, 239, 240, 255. 
Fulton, Wis., 56-5S. 
Fur trade in Wisconsin, 189, 196- 

200, 207, 208, 231, 234. 

Ganymede Springs, 111., 89, 90. 
Garlic Island, Lake Winnebago, 

189-191. 
Garritty, Mary, 226-228. 
Grand Detour, 111., 92-106. 
Great Bend of Rock River, 105- 

106. 
Green Bay, Wis., 23, 27, 180, 181, 

185, 198, 207, 229-234, 238. 
Grignon, Augustin, 184, 1S5, 188, 

232. 



Hanson, John H., cited, 224, 225. 
Harney, Gen. William S., U. S. 

A., 145. 
Helena Village, Wis , 27, 259-265. 
Helena, Wis., Old, 265, 266. 
Henry, Maj. James D., 253, 255. 
Hoo-Tschope. See Four Legs. 

Illinois Indians, 21, 176. 
lowatuk, Winnebago princess, 189, 
191. 

Janesville, Wis., 20, 26, 60-65. 
Jesuit missionaries, 21, 24, 176, 

177, 180, 181, 228, 229, 231. 
Joliet, Sieur de, 21, 176, 229, 

239- 

KACKALiN.Grand. See Kaukauna. 
Kaukauna, Wis., 27, 185, 206-213. 
Kellogg's trail, 106, 107. 
Keokuk, Fox chief, 255. 
Kickapoo Indians, 175. 
Kickapoo River, Wis., 27, 284, 

285, 287, 288. 
Kinzie, Mrs. John H., cited, 146, 

200. 
Koshkonong, Lake, 18, 19, 59, 

254. 

Lakeside, Third Lake, 32. 
Langlade, Charles de, 198, 232. 
Latham Station, 111., 76, 77. 
Lawrence Unii^ersity, 205, 206. 
Lead mines at Galena, 18. 
Lecuyer, Jean B., 143, 144. 
Lignery, Sieur Marchand de, 198. 
Lincoln, Abraham, 19. 
Little Kaukauna, Wis., 206, 216- 

219, 221, 225. 
Lone Rock, Wis., 27, 262, 267-270. 
Louis XVI., King of France, 223- 

225. 
Louis XVII. , Dauphin of France, 

223-225. 
Louvigny, Sieur de, 198. 
Lyndon, 111., 26, 118. 

Madison, Wis., 18, 26. 



Index* 



297 



Manhattan, Wis., 281. 
Marin, Sieiir de, 197, 198. 
Marquette, Father James, 21, 157, 

176, 229, 239. 
Marquette Village, Wis., 26, 161, 

166-170. 
Mascoutin Indians, 175-178. 
Mazomanie, Wis., 256. 
Menasha, Wis., 23, 183, 185, 195, 

196, 207. 

Menomonee Indians, 187, 188, 196, 

197, 223. 

Menimac, Wis,, 27, 248-250. 

Miami Indians, 175. 

Milan, 111., 139. 

Milwaukee and Northern Ry , 

203, 204. 
Mississippi River, 21, 26, 27, 136, 

138, 180, 229-231, 239, 253-255, 

290-293. 
Mohawk Indians, 222. 
Montello, Wis., 22, 26, 160, 162- 

164, 168. 
Muscoda, Wis., 23, 27, 270, 272- 

274. 

Neenah, Wis., 22, 27, 183, 185, 

191, 195-201, 206. 
New York Indians. See Oneidas. 
Nicolet, Jean, 2r, 175, 176, 230, 

231. 
Northern Insane Hospital, Wis.. 

189-191. 

Omro, Wis., 22, 27, 175, 178, 179. 
Oneida Indians, 222-228. 
Oregon, 111., 20, 26, 8S-90. 
Orion, Wis., 272. 
Oshkosh, Menomonee chief, 187, 

18S. 
Oshkosh, Wis., 27, i6i, 182, 183, 

185-188, 190, 207. 
Ott's Farm, Madison, Wis., 33. 
Owen, 111. See Latham Station. 

Packwaukee, Wis., 26, 150, 159- 

161, 163. 
Paine Bros., 186. 
Paquette, Pierre, 144. 



Penney, Josephine, 226-228. 
Philippe, Louis, King of France, 

225. 
Pope's Springs, Wis., 60. 
Porlier, James, 184, 185. 
Porlier, Louis B., 184, 185. 
Portage, Wis., 21, 23, 26, 27, 143- 

146, 160, 161, 185, 198, 206, 237- 

242. 
Port Andrew, Wis., 27, 275-279. 
Pottawattomie Indians, 18, ig, 87. 
Poygan Lake, 22, iSo, iSi. 
Prairie du Chien, Wis., 21, 27, 145, 

238, 240, 255, 291-293. 
Prairie du Sac, Wis., 23, 27, 252- 

256, 266. 
Princeton, Wis., 22, 27, 168-172, 

210. 
Prophetstown, 111., 18, 26, 1 18-120. 
Puckawa Lake, 22, 161, 163-169. 

Red Bird, Winnebago chief, 145. 
Richland Center, Wis., 269. 
Richland City, Wis., 269. 
Rockford, 111., 20, 26, 79. 
Rock Island, 111., 18, 26, 139, 140, 

253- 
Rock River, 17-21, 29-140, 213, 

253. 
Rockton, 111., 20. 
Roscoe, 111., 74, 76. 

Sac Indians, 18, 19, 119, 198, 

253-256. 
Sacramento, Wis., 177, 178. 
Sauk City, Wis., 23, 256, 257. 
Sawyer, Philetus, 186. 
Second Lake, 33, 36-39, 43. 
Shaubena, Pottawattomie chief, 18. 
Sioux Indians, 230, 231, 255. 
Smith's Island, Wis., 149-156. 
Spring Green, Wis., 261. 
Stebbinsville, Wis., 53, 54. 
Sterling, 111., 20, 26, 108, 109. 
Stillman's Creek, 19, 83, 86, 87. 
Stillman's defeat, 19, 87. 
Stoughton, Wis., 20, 26, 42, 44, 

46-50, 52. 
Stuart, Robert, 232. 



298 



Index. 



Taylor, Zachary, 19. 

Third Lake, 31, 33. 

Turvill's Bay, Third Lake, 32, 33. 

Twiggs, Maj. David, 232. 

Walking Cloud, a Winnebago, 

200. 
Wauzeka, Wis., 27, 28sr28S. 
White Cloud, Indian prophet, iS, 

119. 
White River lock, 172, 173. 
Williams, Eleazar, 222-228. 
Williams, Mrs. Eleazar, 225, 226. 
Winnebago Indians, 19, 119, 145, 

166, 189, ig6, 197, 199-20X, 223, 

230, 231, 238, 254, 255. 
Winnebago Lake, 22, 180, 183, 

189-196, 206. 



Winnebago prophet. See White 

Cloud. 
Winnebago Rapids, 196-201. 
Winneconne, 22, 164, 179-1S2. 
Wisconsin Central Ry., 144, 160. 
Wisconsin Heights, battle of, 254, 

266. 
Wisconsin River, 17, 21-23, 27, 

i43-i46> 230, 231, 237-293. , 
Wisconsin River Dells, 23. 
Wolf River, 179-183, 1S5. 
Woodman, Wis., 283. 
Wright's Ferry, Wis., 27, 289. 
Wrightstown, Wis., 213, 214, 220. 

Yahara River. See Catfish. 



